The Calm After The Storm
by Wanderingbrowneyes
Summary: Vauseman post-Litchfield. I'm still in the middle of my other story but having some writers block. I've had this one on the side and was inspired to work on this today. Please review (they're very appreciated and motivating), favorite and/or follow if you like.
1. Chapter 1

The Calm After The Storm

* * *

1

The click of the first lock on the door radiated down the long hall of the apartment. Piper's ears perked up at the noise with every intention of going to meet her wife at the door like she did routinely everyday but her brain told her to stay put. The second lock repeated a similar click , the keys jingling in the lock.

"Helloooo?" Alex called out a bit confused to see the lights on in the living room down the hall, background noise from the television set but no Piper.

It became routine to greet each other at the door; it never felt pathetic or forced, it was genuine happiness to see each other after being apart the entire day. Each woman would question if that feeling would ever fade, the longing to always be near, but the time spent separated years ago when Alex would travel before Piper joined her side, the eight years spent apart prior to being reunited and the time spent after each of them had been released from Litchfield, was time that they would never get back, and neither wanted to add to.

"I'm in here," Piper called out from the living room.

The tall brunette glided down the pumpkin colored hallway adorned with dozens of photos from their past travels. Her footsteps became louder as her footing transitioned off of the runner from the hall into the entryway.

"Are you ok?" she called out, as she slipped the strap of her cross body backpack over her head and placed it in the basket under the mail table in the entryway.

"Yep, just trying to work my magic."

She began to walk towards the living room but stopped herself mid-step,

"shoes!," the blonde called out from the living room.

She retreated back towards the table and leaned her back against the wall, lifted her leg and unzipped her boot, followed by the other. She placed the boots beside their coat-rack, unbuttoned her jacket and unlooped her scarf from around her neck and hung them both on the rack. She walked hurriedly towards the voice, her socked feet providing no traction she almost slipped on the polished hardwood floor, but she regained her balance, she didn't remember it being so slippery.

She turned the corner of the living room and eyed an empty couch. Her eyes darted quickly when she found Piper on the floor on her elbows and knees, a pillow under her cheek, her ass in the air.

"Hey," she mumbled from the ground.

Alex inhaled slowly and brought a hand to her mouth, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

* * *

"You're sure about this? I mean by all means I don't necessarily have better odds and I'd be considered increased risk too."

"I'm positive babe, it's definitely not that. I don't have that desire to go through it the way you do," Alex replied, the grocery basket hanging off her left arm.

Piper turned both boxes of ovulation kits over and read the backs comparing efficacy levels. Alex's eyes flashed around the aisle,

"Jesus, I'm in the wrong business. How many fucking types of ovulation kits, pregnancy tests, panty-liners and shit does one country need, huh?"

Piper shushed her while she continued to read the back and placed a box of ovulation kits in the basket next to two different types of pregnancy tests, a hundred count bottle of folic acid, and lubricant among other items.

They'd had this conversation many times. The thought of her own baby was something she just simply hadn't considered for herself. She was a teenager when she knew she was attracted to females, and the thought of having to ever "use someone else's 'seed' completely grossed me out." She'd seen the look in Pipers eyes at Litchfield whenever she showed off the newest picture of Finn Polly brought for her, and her eyes years later when Polly walked in the door with him clinging to her side, how much she loved that little boy and how much he loved her back. She was never too busy or tired to play with him or listen about his day at school. Unwittingly over time her own heart had become fond of the kid; perhaps it was the enthusiasm he possessed as he lunged forward knocking her down when he hugged her hello or the way he nuzzled into her side as he showed her his sticker collection.

"He loves you because you coddle him and you always go out of your way to answer his questions," Piper told her wife one day after they'd watched Finn together.

"I don't. He just fits well in my lap like this because my legs are so damn long. And I don't want to answer his questions with crap information so I look it up."

"You love the way he fits in your lap and how he thinks you know everything. Why are you trying to argue with me?"

Alex avoided eye contact. "He's alright. He's always sticky though and he makes a mess."

Alex couldn't shake what Piper had said though, she _did_ love the way he fit in her lap, and cuddled up beside her when she looked things up, the way he looked at her while he eagerly waited for her to answer his questions about different types of rocks in the latest book she was reading to him. Piper mentioned having a family of their own one day, so it wasn't a foreign concept, she had just never felt the urge or need to expand their family, the way she had been lately. They lay in bed later that same evening after cleaning up pieces of Goldfish out of the carpet. The room was dark other than the swinging lamp mounted on the wall that illuminated the pages of Pipers book. Alex's head lay on Pipers abdomen, her eyes tracking her wiggling toes as she read. She lay there for a while, when she murmured, "syrup and cheese."

"Heh?" Piper questioned.

Alex laughed while tracing a finger on Pipers lower abdomen just above her shorts, "Finn. He always smells like syrup and cheese."

Piper drew her knees up and Alex turned over and looked at her. "I think I'm ready, well as ready as I can be. I want our own baby."

Piper couldn't contain her smile, she squinted her eyes, "but I thought his sticky hands and mess drove you crazy?"

The corner of Alex's mouth dipped down to the side but her face was bright, "it does but kind of in the same way yours did when you first started moving all your stuff into my place. Of course it didn't go unnoticed but I kind of loved finding your junk everywhere because it just made me think of you."

"When did you become such a mush?"

Alex shoved her shoulder, "I'm not," she sighed, "I just miss the kid when he goes home at end of the day. Yes, his limitless energy is exhausting, and sometimes when he knocks me over and my back feels like it's going to give out I'm reminded of how old I am, but the pros so outweigh those little things."

"I knowwwww," Piper whispered with her eyes closed.

Piper bent her neck downward, and Alex lifted off the bed just enough to kiss her wife. Piper brought both of her hands up to her face, "I'm gonna throw up, I'm so excited. You're sure?"

Alex nodded quickly, "yeah."

Piper roughly removed herself from underneath Alex and skipped towards her laptop, moments later returning with it to their bed.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to look at sperm donors and email my ob/gyn office a request for an appointment."

"Right now? Cant we start all this in the morning?"

"No way, I'll never be able to sleep now," she bit at the nail on her pointer finger.

Alex threw her head back onto the pillow beside Piper and laughed knowing that was the God's honest truth.

"You're still sure that you don't want to carry our baby?" Piper asked.

"Yeah definitely, it would be too foreign for me, I'll be more of a wait outside and pass out cigars kind of mom you know?"

Piper looked at her sternly, "you know people don't do that anymore right? You need to be with me and you can't smoke anything in a hospital."

Alex took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, "is this a preview for what I'm signing up for?" Piper relaxed her face slightly.

"All I'm saying is you've wanted this experience your whole life and I'll be there to take care of you. Ok? I'm sure I want this for us. "

* * *

A few days later, Piper was reassured after her pre-conception counseling visit, that her body was healthy and had no reason to do anything else to increase her chances of fertility. She tracked her periods, had a healthy diet and eliminated toxic habits from her lifestyle. They decided they wouldn't tell anyone about their decision to build their family until they knew their baby was healthy.

She confirmed with her ovulation stick that morning that today was a fertile day and she waited for Alex on the busy Manhattan sidewalk during their lunch break to pick up the canister that held their donor sperm.

"This thing is huge, what the hell kind of sperm is this?" The container looked like a vintage milk container, and was bulky and awkward.

"Something about the liquid nitrogen needing a certain amount of space to keep it chilled. It _is_ really big though," Piper replied giggling with her arm hooked into Alex's.

"I can't take this to work with me, the guys will never let me hear the end of it. I'm going to just take the rest of the day, see you tonight?" Piper pecked her cheek and said yes with a look of adoration in her eyes and parted, descending down the subway steps.

Piper came home to the smell of marinara sauce. She floated into the kitchen while Alex managed several pots on the stove and handed her a glass of red wine and a small kiss. "Maybe I shouldn't," she handed the glass back to Alex.

"Pipes it's fine, one glass of wine isn't going to do anything."

Piper sipped her wine and retreated into their living room. Alex brought their plates in and set them on the coffee table. Piper held her glass and looked around the room, "you know we really should get a dining room table. That's something I want our baby to grow up with, tableside family dinners."

Alex looked around and nodded.

Piper chewed on her rigatoni, "aren't you going to eat?"

Alex looked up, dazed, two glasses of wine gone from while she cooked and her brain was now swirling with the directions for their insemination that she had read through so many times. She ate some pasta with Pipers encouragement and brought her blonde to their bedroom.

Piper undressed while Alex lit a few candles around their room. She bent down near the side of the bed and opened the canister, a mist escaped and she couldn't help but laugh.

"I'm sorry, I was trying to make this as normal as possible but this just isn't romantic."

Piper crawled over to the edge wearing only a shirt and bra, and looked over the edge and saw the white vapor that Alex released from the container. Alex slid the straws containing the sperm on their bed and then got up and got a plastic bag, a towel, the syringe, a scissor, and lubricant. Piper laid on her back while Alex sat uncomfortably upright looking at the sperm straws on their bed as if they were as out of place as a drag queen cat-walking down an Oklahoma country road.

"I can't tell if you're nauseated or terrified, stop staring at the sperm."

"How are you so relaxed?"

"I've been ready for this for a long time Al."

"Yeah but is this how you imagined it?"

A close lipped, wide smile, slowly crossed Piper's mouth; she tilted her head to the side and grabbed Alex's tense hand.

"Yeah it is-well not always but when I knew I wanted to spend my life with you, yes. I knew I'd always want kids but I never knew if you'd really want them too, and I'd hoped to be able to have my own baby, biologically, so when I'd said yes to marrying you, I knew this is how it would be."

"I thought it would be put in in an office somewhere, I didn't think we could do this at home."

"I'm relaxed because it's you, in our bed, in our home. It's romantic enough. Do you think they're thawed?" she rocked her head towards their liquid gold.

Alex's hand relaxed in Pipers and traced her finger over the straws looking at them differently now, "yeah, they're not cold anymore."

"Okay, great. You feel like you know what you're doing?"

Alex confidently nodded her head. She cut the straws, and drew up the contents in the syringe. She squeezed some of the lubricant onto her fingers, "I don't need it" Piper replied, "I'm always ready believe me."

"I….. I don't want to hurt you," Alex replied, she'd never been so nervous to touch this woman in her life.

"You're not going to hurt me, just relax," she grabbed a pillow and shoved it under her hips. "The lubricant can supposedly help, but I'm good, really, just do it."

Alex wiped her hand on the towel. She nudged Pipers knee open and kissed her center softly once and sat back up. She touched her wife gently and inserted the sperm. She brought her body up over Pipers and kissed her neck over and over until Piper couldn't resist the urge to touch herself. Alex replaced her hand and rubbed her in circles until she felt her wife arch her back and let out a primal moan. Her breathing slowed and Piper kissed Alex's lips. Alex kneed across the sheets and scooped everything off of the bed. "Sorry this needs to not be here anymore, it's driving me crazy."

Piper laid with her hips propped up while Alex cleaned up. She heard the faucet turn on from the main bathroom as she imagined Alex scrubbing her hands and chuckled. She came back into the room and laid down next to Piper. She cracked Pipers book open and read aloud after Piper said her angle was awkward to read it on her own. Distracting herself with the written words, Alex read for over an hour, not knowing when Piper fell asleep. She turned off their light, but her eyes remained open at the thoughts of everything that had gone on that day. She got up and went into their bathroom. She peed, brushed her teeth and bent down to get the mouthwash from underneath the sink. She eyed all the products in the basket under the sink, all the things they purchased a few weeks prior from the drugstore. Never in her life had she bought any of these things that most women do at some point in their lives, it looked so alien in her own home. She read the back of the different pregnancy test boxes, one advertised detecting pregnancy five days before a missed period. She replaced the box into the basket, and shut the light. She walked out of their bedroom and pulled the door closed behind her. She walked into their home office, pulled the push pin off the cork board and sat on the floor with the calendar in her lap. She glanced over the pages, she was about to count out days so she could figure out how early Piper could take her pregnancy test when she noticed all the different colored dots on the pages: period dots, ovulation dots, pregnancy test dots, "beat me to it." It was no secret that they were both obsessive compulsive in their own respects and Alex silently laughed, she should've known the blonde would've added the ovulation and pregnancy dots to their calendar.

Two weeks had gone by, Alex had been busy at work with plans for a building requiring updated construction. Laundry had piled up and there was no food in the house. They planned on going to the market together later that evening. Music played throughout the car as they were driving to the market, Piper squeezed Alex's knee, "I'm not pregnant."

Alex's eyes slowly left the road and glanced toward Piper. She had completely forgotten amount timing the test. Alex started thinking about having to go through all of the steps again, when she redirected her attention back to Piper, the blonde's eyes were in her lap. "Hey it was just the first time," she grasped her hand and kissed it, "it might take some time."

"I know that, I just got caught in the moment I guess, hoping it would stick the first time" she breathed deeply, "I feel sad." It was so simply stated, but Alex's heart broke at her words, she wished she could just make it happen. She pulled the car over to the side of the road, she could see the tears slowly dripping down Pipers cheeks and onto her jeans as she cried silently. Alex eyes welled up and she undid her seat belt and turned all the way to Piper. She held both of her hands in her own and kissed her.

"I feel sad too," she stated and Piper looked up at her, "it's going to happen though, just give it more time." She cupped Pipers face with her hands and wiped her tears with her thumbs. "This is supposed to be a happy time in our lives, don't stress and feel let down, it's going to happen when it's supposed to, like everything else. You're meant to be a mother."

Piper leaned over and put her head on Alex's shoulder. She knew her wife was right but it still hurt and she cursed herself at her innocence and magical thinking, believing it would happen on the first try.

Six months later, Piper woke up alone in the bed, the water from the shower audible through the bathroom door in their bedroom. She got up and quietly walked into the bathroom. Alex was singing Beyonce's "End of Time" while stomping out the beat in the shower. The steam from the hot water coated the bathroom mirror, Piper crouched down and quietly tore through the foil of her pregnancy test. She tried to quietly pee over the stick. As much as she tried to be positive and strong, months after months of negative tests was disheartening and broke her spirit each and every time. Regardless, she silently prayed while she peed. She shut the lid of the toilet, but didn't flush. She placed the test on the edge of the sink beside Alex's blaring phone and sat on the toilet lid, her back against the wall and counted to Mississippi one hundred and eighty times. She tiptoed over to the test and almost screamed when she saw the faintest pink line. Her vision blurred with wetness, her shoulders shook as she cried.

"All up in the kitchen in my heels, dinner time," Alex sang along with Beyonce to a new song, Piper covered her mouth holding back delirious laughter. Getting clean always made Piper happy, but after being deprived of a proper cleansing routine for all those years-long hot showers, complete with an intact, clean curtain and full on shampoo microphone sing a longs- were a guilty pleasure that neither of them took for granted anymore.

She looked up blinking quickly over and over, she opened her mouth and tried to exhale quietly, controlling her breathing. Over the last 6 months she thought of so many cute ways she'd want to tell Alex, but now she couldn't think clearly, she needed to tell her now. She placed the test behind the faucet, wrote "look down" with an arrow on the mirror and stepped out of the bathroom. The cool air on the other side of the door was welcomed as she put her hands on her knees and leaned over. She couldn't believe it. She ran into the office and moved her finger over the calendar, her eyes furiously looking over the dates that blurred through her still wet eyes. She stopped on the date of her last period and smiled. She went back to the bedroom and paced around the room until she heard the water stop, she froze. The sixty seconds that it took Alex to step out the shower and dry off seemed like hours, _"what the hell is she doing in there?!"_ Piper thought to herself.

"Me and my boo, in my boo coupe ridin," she heard her singing suddenly halt, "OH MY GOD!" she heard her yell from behind the door.

The doorknob moved around, she heard Alex curse unable to open it with wet hands and then she appeared in the doorway holding the pregnancy test and her towel falling down, barely being held up with the other hand. She held herself together for about a tenth of a second after seeing all of Pipers teeth including her molars through the most beautiful smile as she continued to cry and flung herself into her arms.


	2. Chapter 2

2

Alex sat naked on their bed, her towel laying across her legs, still holding the pregnancy test in her hand. Piper grabbed her phone and took a picture of it before looking up a due date calculator. She peed on two other tests throughout the day, not being able to recreate the feeling she had the first time she saw the line, even if these lines were darker. She made them an appointment to confirm results even though the nurse on the phone reassured her the home tests were reliable. She had blood drawn, was given a prescription for prenatal vitamins and vitamin b6 if she needed it for nausea. Another appointment was made for a few weeks for a sonogram, full labs and other consultations.

The next 3 weeks were amusing. Alex researched everything about morning sickness cursing under her breath how misleading it was when Piper mostly got nauseous at night. She'd left her laying on their couch with some saltines and ginger ale while she went into China town looking for fresh ginger to make her famous tea. She'd read online that it was safe and was determined to get Piper feeling better. She held the pink grocery bag of ginger, along with an assortment of bland foods, while she waited in line at the pharmacy for Pipers vitamin b6 prescription to be filled. She came home and went straight to the couch and knelt down beside Piper, stroked her head and unloaded the groceries on the table.

"Oh my God Alex what is all of this?" She pulled a folded paper from her back pocket that she'd printed out of suggestions to alleviate morning sickness and read each bullet. "Babe, it's not even that bad. It's just at night, and I really don't mind it." Alex looked at her like she was insane and walked into the kitchen to start making her tea. She returned a few minutes later and brought the mug down to Piper with both hands as Piper sat up.

She opened the bottle of vitamin b6 and handed one over to her. "It says you can take it twice a day, I hope it helps."

Piper placed a hand on Alex's forehead and then dragged it down over her mouth, squeezed it, and whispered "thank you."

Alex sat on the couch next to her and laid back, relaxing for the first time that day. She started to nod off, and Piper stood up and pushed her back down gently so that she was lying on the couch, she made sure her neck was supported on the arm.

"Where're you going?" she asked raspily.

"I have to pee for the seventeenth time today, I'll be right back." She returned shortly, and sat between Alex's legs, her back facing Alex's front and lied down flat, her head resting onto her wife's ribs. She brought Alex's arms around her and laid her hands down flat over her lower abdomen. Alex sleepily started tracing her fingers over her skin, Piper smirked and drifted off.

* * *

They waited anxiously in the waiting room, "Piper?" the medical assistant called out and they both stood up and walked forward. "We just ask that you wait out here for a few minutes, and then we'll call you in," the receptionist stated to Alex.

Alex narrowed her eyebrows, but swallowed hard. Piper raised her eyebrows also a bit confused, but told her she'd be right back. She watched as Piper followed the assistant toward the back of the office. She ground her teeth and sat back down in the waiting room. Her phone buzzed five minutes later in the pocket of her navy blue blazer. She pulled it out,

_Piper: Come to the back, I'm in room five. _

Alex stood up, walked past the receptionist glaring at her while she opened the door and followed the hall with alternating doors to each side until she got to room 5. She knocked on the door and walked in. Piper was sitting in a chair, still fully dressed with another woman clacking on the computer. The woman stood up and extended her hand to Alex, "Hi, I'm Karen, one of the midwives, it's nice to meet you."

"Alex," she shook the woman's hand and sat down next to Piper.

"Sorry about keeping you out there, there are some questions that we want to ask privately to ensure we have accurate histories, but Piper insisted that you already know everything and that you were here."

She started with an overview of care. "So we get to know you pretty well throughout this experience, once monthly for the first seven months, then once every two weeks, and then for your final month every week." Alex's eyes widened at the thought of how many appointments they had coming up and all the days she'd need to take off from work.

"I have most of your history here from your preconception counseling visit, but just let me confirm that nothing has changed, alright?"

She went through her history, allergies, medications, past medical problems, surgeries, family history, social history, then her gynecological and obstetric history. Alex nodded along, she did know her whole history, she was pretty healthy, just an allergy to penicillin, she remembered having to find Piper antibiotics for an infection over a decade ago while they traveled and Piper told her she would break out into a rash with hives if she had penicillin.

The midwife asked about early pregnancy symptoms, reassured her that they were all normal signs.

"The nausea is definitely better when I take the vitamin b6 and drink ginger tea," she stated.

Alex chimed in, "I read online the tea was okay for her, that's true isn't it?"

The midwife smiled and nodded. "Yes definitely, and I can print out a list of other methods to relieve any continued nausea. I'm glad you're reading but don't go crazy with the internet alright? There's a lot of incorrect information out there. If you have questions keep a list and we can go over things at your appointments, if there is something more urgent, here is our hotline number, you can call it 24/7 and someone is always there to answer anything no matter how big or small."

Alex went to receive the card, when Piper blocked her hand and took the card. "I'll take this. She's literally already bought out the whole grocery store with tasteless foods so that I don't promote the nausea." The midwife sucked in her lips and tried not to laugh.

Karen handed her a gown and asked her to undress and she stepped out. Piper changed out of her clothes and put on the gown. She climbed onto the table and let her legs dangle off the side,

"Crap, I meant to ask her if we would have a sonogram today. I need to get some sort of book to keep track of my questions."

A knock and Karen returned wheeling in a portable sonogram machine. She plugged it in and washed her hands.

"So I'm going to do your exam and then I'll call one of our doctors to do a sonogram. Based on your last period, you should be about seven weeks or so, so a vaginal sonogram would be more accurate. It's not an official sonogram but I'll send you for one of those as well, do you want to have tests done to check for any abnormalities?"

Piper bit her lip and instinctually brought her hand to her lower abdomen. Alex noticing the worry on her face, stood up by her side and squeezed her hand.

"What kinds of tests are they? What do you think we should do?"Alex asked for the both of them.

"Well you're a healthy female, but because you're over 35 you're considered to have an increased risk of fetal abnormalities but between the sonogram and some blood work that we can do in a few weeks that is enough to make a good estimate for you personally. It's a screening test though. If you want a definitive answer, we can perform an amniocentesis but there is a small risk of a miscarriage with that test as it's a bit more invasive."

Piper shook her head immediately, "No, can we just do the screening test and if it comes back that I'm high risk make a decision later?"

"Yes absolutely."

Piper looked over at Alex, "is that alright with you?" Alex felt overwhelmed with the amount of information and had difficulty digesting all of it. They said they'd wait to tell their friends and family about their baby when they knew it was healthy but she never stopped to think about what they would do it if it wasn't.

"I know it's morbid to think about, but these are tests that you should do only if you want this information, it's not for everyone. Some people want to know the results because they don't feel like they would be able to parent a child who had special needs. Others want the information so that they can mentally prepare and educate themselves on the specific conditions so that they are ready. Others just simply cannot endure a full pregnancy not knowing either way so they accept the test and decide what they'll do later. You both don't need to decide what to do today. When you come back in a month, you'll be far enough along to do the tests and we can revisit this alright?"

Piper nodded quietly, more nervous than when she first walked into this room, Alex shook her head rapidly from side to side trying to shake any thoughts of any possibility that anything could ever go wrong.

Piper lay back on the table for her exam, while Alex stood behind her head. The midwife told her that her uterus felt about the size of a small grapefruit, and Alex practically crossed her eyes. She stepped out again and returned with a doctor who performed her sonogram. He pointed out to the flicker on the screen,

"and that there is the heart beating." He pressed some buttons on the machine and turned up a knob creating a static like sound, and he moved the mouse over the flickering image when a quick thumping filled the room.

Piper sharply inhaled and squeezed Alex's hand. "Is that not _the_ most perfect sound you've ever heard?"

Silence.

"Alex?"

She tilted her head back and Alex laughed through her tears, "I'm such a freaking cliché," she looked over at Karen, "does this ever get old? People falling apart in front of you every day?"

"No, these kinds of moments are the highlight of my job."

She thanked the doctor, handed some of the captured images to Piper and told her she could get dressed. She turned to her computer and ordered labs, and some future appointments. Piper continued dressing while she handed Alex a binder full of important numbers, information, warning signs, safe foods and medications that could be taken over the counter.

They walked out of the office feeling elated and but also a little worried. "So, what would we do if something was wrong?"

Alex rubbed the small of her back. "Pipes I never thought about this."

Piper nodded in agreement. "I think for me, it would depend on what the problem is, but I would definitely need to know either way. Being left in the dark would drive me insane."

"Let's not worry about anything until there's something to worry about ok?"

The past four weeks, Piper went to work at PoPi, hoping Polly wouldn't pick up on anything. Working around fragrances all day had made it challenging to hold down her breakfast, her sense of smell had enhanced two fold. It would be easier to tell Polly, and she'd be so excited and supportive but she couldn't shake the feeling of having to retell their world that something was wrong with their baby after making people around her so excited. Polly had commented on how frequently she had used the bathroom and asked her if she was alright. Piper just brushed it off, and said she was trying to drink eight full glasses of water a day to rid her body of toxins and Polly just accepted it as one of the latest things Piper read in a magazine. But today she commented on her attire over the last two weeks.

"Another dress? I'm beginning to feel more drab than I already usually do around you. Should I not wear jeans to work anymore? Is it unfashionable?"

Piper's jeans were just barely too small to fit into and while normally she would just deal with it, she knew Polly would notice they were tighter immediately and start to put things together.

"The weather is nice, I've just been in a flowy mood," she responded nonchalantly, "wanna break for lunch?"

Piper exhaled, while still feeling slightly guilty about lying to Polly. She knew Alex had similar banter going on with Nicky. She whined to Piper that Nicky had given her shit over not coming out, to any of the lounges they frequented, over the last few months. "She thinks I'm avoiding her and calling me old when I suggest something like a movie."

Piper and Polly went to lunch around the corner from their shop. They threw around ideas for some new scents and products to add to their line. Piper excused herself to use the bathroom and asked Polly to get her wallet from her purse to pay if the bill came. Polly reached for her best friends purse and felt around for her wallet when she heard a pill bottle rattle. She pulled it out of the purse and read "prenatal vitamins." Polly gasped out loud and tried to hide her excitement. She called their waiter over and asked if he could bring two glasses of orange juice to their table and paid their bill.

Piper returned from the bathroom and sat down, "did you pay?"

Polly stared at her with her attempt at an aloof smile. The waiter returned with two glasses of orange juice, the check and Polly's credit card. Piper confusedly looked at the juice as if the order wasn't there's when Polly thanked the waiter and looked back at Piper.

"Why do you look ridiculous? And why would you order juice? I thought we were done."

"It's fresh squeezed, and refreshing and its 90 degrees outside. Why will it interfere with your water challenge?"

"No, it's fine, thanks… I guess," she looked at her friend suspiciously and sipped her orange juice.

"It's a mimosa," Polly stated as she brought her own glass to her lips and gulped down her juice.

Piper spit hers back into the cup."Polly, what the hell? Why wouldn't you tell me you're giving me a drink in the middle of the work day?"

"Why wouldn't you tell me you're pregnant? You little bitch!"

Piper looked at her in amazement with her jaw lowered, "how do you know?"

"How could you not tell me?! Of course now it's obvious, the constant peeing and the lack of skinny jeans, had me doubting my fashion sense!," she sipped her juice, "I thought I was your best friend?" She looked hurt. "I found your vitamins in your purse."

Piper tilted her head back, not thinking at all about the pills in her purse. She'd gotten used to them being in there for the last few weeks. "You are my best friend. We just didn't want to tell anyone until we knew if everything was ok. I have my prenatal visit at the end of the week."

"Piper you're like the healthiest person I know and again, _now_ it all makes sense you've been on an even healthier streak, even for you. Why would you think something is wrong? Is Alex freaking you out? How many weeks are you?" Her eyes darted to her friend's tummy.

"I'm just nervous because I'm a little older, and no Alex has been amazing. She keeps trying to tell me not to worry, but I can't help it. I'm just a little over eleven weeks."

"I seriously cannot believe you've kept this from me for all of this time. I was nervous too but everything was fine, really just be calm, you're already doing everything you can. How are you feeling overall?"

"Mostly tired, nausea was way worse before, pretty much got it down to a science now. My boobs hurt a little but otherwise I'm pretty good."

Polly wrapped her in a tight hug. "I'm kind of in shock, I didn't even know you guys were thinking about trying."

"If I had told you, you would've driven me crazy. It took six months, it was agonizing."

"So nobody else knows?"

Piper shook her head, "no one. Please other than Pete, don't tell anyone until I have my visit ok?" She kissed Piper on her cheek and promised.

They returned to work but got absolutely nothing done. Polly was a typical best friend and tried to catch up on all the details that she had been deprived of being a part of. She made Piper pull the loose fabric of her dress back to show off her belly, even though it had just looked like she'd eaten a big lunch. "You're too much, if I hadn't told you would be able to tell?"

"You _didn't_ tell me, I figured it out thank you very much, and probably not, I'd just attribute it to a few too many beers or something," she laughed sweetly.

"Not going to lie, I miss the occasional beer. I never really paid attention to how much I liked certain things until now, being forced to neglect them."

Piper sent Alex a text message saying she was going shopping with Polly and would probably get dinner out with her, before heading out to some stores. At home, Alex was picking up around the house when the bell from the intercom buzzed. "Who is it?"

"Ay yo, Vause it's me, let me up." Alex buzzed in Nicky ready for the guilt trip from turning her down to go out over the last few weeks. Alex pressed the button on the intercom, opened their front door and stood in the doorway.

"I had to come here in person to make sure it was you I was talking to on the phone and that you didn't drop dead on me. College home yet?"

She shook her head. "Sorry Nick, I know, things have been really busy. Piper went to dinner with Polly actually, want to order in or something?" she said as she continued to pick up and straighten as she walked about, Nicky following her.

"No, I want to go out one weekend and let off some steam, work has been intense for me too, y'know."

She continued shadowing Alex throughout the apartment while Alex grabbed some papers from her backpack, and carried them to their office. She laid the papers out on the desk and sorted through them; she squatted down, her glasses slid down her nose, and pulled out the drawer of the small file cabinet and slipped individual papers into different files.

Nicky eyed their calendar in search of an open weekend, "you're free this weekend, what's with all the dots? Chapman's got you on a color coded system?"

Alex tilted her head back so she could see through her glasses, "she doesn't have me on anything, she's just organized, wanna get away from my calendar?"

"Why are there so many Ob/Gyn... is everything okay?," her tone was briefly serious, "get chlamydia on another dare?" Nicky started to shuffle around as if the floor was hot.

Alex stood up without any concern in her eye, she then lunged forward as if to shove Nicky in the shoulder but the wild haired blonde darted her movement. "Everything is perfectly fine, you're a fucking impossible nag."

Alex hit the light of the office leaving Nicky standing there in the dark and walked toward the kitchen. She opened the fridge and poured a glass of water, "you want anything?"

"What do you have?"

"Water, milk, cranberry juice, ginger ale…"

"Please tell me you have fucking beer?"

"I forgot to get some last time I went, what do you want?"

Nicky threw her arms in the air, "you're fucking useless! Doesn't College usually do the shopping? This is why, you fucked up grocery shopping. How could _you_ forget beer?"

Alex glared at Nicky, 5 seconds from threatening to get a comb through her hair.

Nicky narrowed her eyes back at Alex, ready for battle, when her mouth dropped, "… holy shit, are you guys breeding?"


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you for all of the comments, reviews, favs, follows and PM's. A few people asked, and while so much of this is out of thin air, my creativity is limited and every chapter that I've written in both stories has come from a personal place, and I feel blessed to have had some of these experiences.

Also mildly freaking out today re-watching scenes for inspiration and realized that I saw Maria Dizzia (Polly Harper) in a broadway show a few years ago. Ah!

* * *

3

"Jesus…fuck, you say 'breeding' like it's some kind of vulgarity."

"Holy fuckin' shit Vause!" she yelled so loudly, Alex swore the neighbors were about to pound on the walls, "you guys are going to have a baby? You can't even remember your lunch bag half the week!"

Alex tongued her cheek and continued to stare down the woman who accidentally became her confidante while serving time in Litchfield.

Nicky jumped and put her in a headlock before giving her a genuine hug. It felt amazing that someone else knew. Alex walked to the corner of their kitchen where they had a wine cabinet, pulling out a bottle and made some hand gestures, "will this do?"

Nicky nodded "you used to say 'breeders' too, you fucking hypocrite!"

Alex kept her back to her friend and poured them each a glass of wine.

"So did you guys already breed or just rid the place of anything potentially harmful as like this pre-baby making cleanse?"

Alex smirked at her and handed her friend her glass while straddling an ottoman, Nicky dramatically adjusted her skirt and crossed her legs, implying she was offended by Alex's body language. She tapped her glass to Alex's, raised her pinky in the air and sipped her wine.

"Good wine," Nicky shared her approval and reclined into their sofa.

Alex tilted her head far back and stroked her neck, "Piper can't drink anything right now, she honestly could probably care less if I bought beer and brought home sushi," she sipped her wine, and placed her glass on the table,"but she's already putting her body through enough, she's tired and nauseous and throwing up, I don't want to cause her any emotional stress. I…need to support her, I shouldn't throw all the things that I don't have to sacrifice in her face you know?"

"Well aren't you just so compassionate, why don't we just beckon Florence Nightingale and have her pin a vintage nursing cap on your head herself?"

Alex mouthed "fuck-you" in slow motion.

"You guys can still come out though, she's not disabled."

"I know that, and she's her own person. She's told me to go and that I didn't have stay back just because she's just not been up to it. This is the first day she hasn't come straight home since," she swallowed and didn't finish her sentence. She continued,"I'll try to be a better friend," Nicky put her hands up as if to say _it's fine I'm not judging you_, "I wasn't trying to blow you off, I'm not feeling the bar scene, and I'd want to go somewhere that she'd enjoy right now too. Our midwife said her energy level and the nausea should go away in the next two or three weeks," Nicky nodded in agreement, watching her friend morph before her eyes.

"Until then I need to just be here with her… no, I _want_ to be here with her, shes…," Alex's eyes widened, her head fell into her hands and she breathed deeply, "my pregnant wife." She massaged her fingertips into her scalp, "Shit that sounds so terrifying. That's the first time I said that out loud." She felt her heart palpitating and moving into her throat.

Nicky scooted closer toward the edge of the couch and patted the brunette hard on the back, "congratulations Vause… but all this domestication is seriously going to make me ralph and now I have to pee." She pushed herself off the couch and went to relieve herself. She found Alex laying with her torso onto the couch, hip still over the ottoman.

"Whatsamatter?" She rested a hand on Alex's shoulder. Alex pulled herself upright, her face devoid of any confidence, "what if I suck?"

Nicky pulled her onto the couch and wrapped an arm around her head and exhaled. "Nicky, I have no idea what I'm doing. I have almost no experience with kids, the only kid I really know is Polly's son Finn, and he's an easy one. "

"You just gotta be straight with 'em. They're like dogs, they can smell fear. If they think you're genuine they'll play nice and won't bite."

Alex rubbed her eyes. "Listen Vause, if you love this kid half as fiercely as you do College, and really after all these years it's still enough to make me want to drive the porcelain bus, consider that kid one of the luckiest in the world."

Alex tilted her head and looked sideways at Nicky, and laughed through her nose, "thanks."

"You'll be great, really, I mean it, all you need is love right?" she looked at Alex innocently, then pantomimed gagging herself. "So how'd you pick the donor?"

They spent the better part of the evening eating take out and Alex caught her up on the whole process.

Piper's keys unlocked the door and Alex got up to meet her, Polly followed behind her holding a few bags. Alex kissed Piper hello and told her Nicky was in the living room. Piper walked down the hall and Polly handed Alex Piper's leftovers, "she didn't really each that much." Polly set the bags down in the hall, and followed behind Alex. Alex set the leftovers in the fridge and stood up, she felt Polly's arms wrap around her from behind. Alex's body stiffened, her eyes came down to the arms around her waist, "I'm so excited for you guys, Piper's really happy."

"Piper!," Alex called out from the kitchen, "thanks Polly, I am too, I'm nervous but I'm happy."

"Yeeeeeesss?" Piper came in a few moments later.

"You told Polly," she stated with her hand on her hip. She met Polly's eyes, they were beaming. Her best friend wrapped her arms around her wife again, this time from the side, she tried not to laugh at the height difference.

"Yeah well Nicky just told me she wasn't babysitting so you're just as incompetent at keeping your mouth closed."

She tilted her head down slightly, her eyes peered over the top of her glasses, "you've never complained about my mouth before."

Piper blushed slightly, changing her gaze from her wife to her best friend and waited for Polly's disgusted commentary.

"I don't even care," Polly muttered still hugging Alex.

Alex lifted her arm and let it rest on Polly's back, "wow, was this all I had to do to get a free pass?"

"Mmmm hmmm," Polly replied giddily, nodding her head into Alex's side.

Alex chuckled, "a chubby tiny human could've saved us from years of banter, but what would've been the fun in that?"

They moved into the living room to join Nichols, Polly still attached to Alex.

"This is all your fault you know?," Nicky stood up pointing to Polly. "If your kid wasn't so fucking cute Alex would've been able to fight the urge."

"He's going to be so excited," was Polly's only reply.

"Pol please don't tell him yet, not until I do all my tests… please."

"You'll tell him, when you're ready, you need to stop worrying though, really, it's not healthy, you're going to make yourself sick."

Piper sighed, "I know and I'm starting to feel nauseous now, right on time, almost every night."

"You didn't really eat much though, lemme go warm up some of your leftovers." Alex started to get up when Piper nodded.

Nicky caught Alex's shoulder and pushed her back down onto the couch. "You need to relax too," Nicky walked off to their kitchen to make Piper a plate.

Alex turned towards Piper with a surprised face curling her lips, touched by Nicky's empathy, "well someone's lack of baby enthusiasm faded fast. We can send the kid to Camp Nicky when it's older." Piper smiled and rested her head on Alex's shoulder.

Alex and Nicky's relationship was comprised primarily of sarcastic craic, but if she ever needed her to tuck away the witty insults, Nicky was there pulling an instantaneous 180, always lending a loyal ear and Alex loved her for it. Piper was the one person Nicky had ever seen Alex lose her shit over, multiple times. She would do anything for that woman, anything to make her smile, protect her, and even if she'd poke fun at her, if anyone ever took it too far, the scorn in Alex's eyes would cause anyone to immediately regret their words, internally retreat into a corner and cower. It took Alex a long time before she confided in Nicky without inhibition; Nicky had probed her timelessly for information about their past. She spoke of how she accidentally fell in love with Piper not realizing how deep it was until her life fell apart when the young blonde left her in Paris. She told her of the years she'd spent coping with her loss and trying to move forward, relying on casual sex and her brief stint with heroin. She described the vulnerability that she felt putting herself completely on the table at Pipers mercy while at Litchfield; that she was willing to completely expose herself for the miniscule chance that Piper would be able to rediscover what her and Alex once had years ago and choose the life of surprise versus predictability. Though she was ashamed immediately after she allowed Nicky to sexually release all of her tension, she never forgot the loyalty that came from the person who knowingly allowed herself to be used in order to help a friend.

Polly said her goodbyes and let herself out while Nicky hung around until Piper finished and started to fade. Piper curled up on the couch, resting her head in Alex's lap, Alex stroked her hair. Nicky went to clear her plate when Alex asked her to get a pill from the b6 bottle on the microwave. Nicky returned, Piper took her pill and started nodding off. Alex and Nicky whispered for a while, she asked Alex more details about the tests Piper referred to earlier, she didn't know the first thing either and listened with genuine fascination. She admired her friends' bravery at this experience and while she knew her vision of Alex had now changed forever, she found a new kind of respect for the woman and the choices she'd made over the years.

Alex supported Piper and walked Nicky out, Pipers eyes were barely open as she waved goodbye to Nicky as she walked out the door. "No wrench in ya twat for you tonight Vause," she nudged her head towards a standing up-while-sleeping-Piper, "goodnight."

* * *

Piper had her blood drawn for her first trimester screening test, and proceeded down the hall for an official sonogram and a measurement was taken of the back of their baby's neck to rule out suspicious abnormalities. She was told a few days later on the phone that everything came back negative and she felt like the entire weight of the world had been lifted off of her shoulders. She called Alex and relayed the news. She cooked a big dinner and Alex watched as she happily ate more in that meal than she had eaten over the last two days combined. Her beautiful blonde was finally at peace. She was always able to read Piper like an open book. She could do and say whatever she wanted but Alex always knew what she was feeling inside. "I used to eat when I was stressed, now I can only eat if I'm relaxed," she said around a mouthful of food, stating the obvious.

They retreated to their couch, each leaning their backs against opposite arms, sliding down slightly, feet propped into each other's laps. Alex set an alarm on her phone, they had fallen asleep countless times in this ritual, only waking up the next morning, sometimes an hour after they were supposed to have been at work. Alex pulled one of the Popi lotions from the bowl on their table and massaged Pipers feet. She looked completely at ease, and Alex admired her beauty as she sank completely into the couch, authentically resting for the first time in weeks. She raised her arms over her head, curling one hand over her bun, she traced a finger around her ear and closed her eyes.

Alex just stared at her for a while, she rubbed her feet along Piper's legs, "want anything?"

"I want for nothing," she replied with a soft smile.

Alex smiled back at her and closed her eyes. She felt Piper drag her foot from her ankle, against her inner thigh, until it met her center, she wiggled her toes. Alex raised her eyebrows and muffled a laugh, "now? you're about to fall asleep."

"Yeah well, like _you_ once told me, 'I'm never _that _tired.'"


	4. Chapter 4

4

"Yes around noon… I know, we won't… she's right here, I will, okay," she grabbed a long sleeved shirt from the pile of clothes she was folding on the bed, and wrapped it around her neck like a noose. "She wants me to tell you that she's looking forward to your casserole." Alex made a halo with her fingers over her head. Piper pulled the phone away from her ear and pulled the shirt sleeve higher over her head, tightening it around her neck.

"Stop," Alex mouthed, and unwrapped the shirt, folding it with hasty speed. Piper primarily did their laundry, but Alex often took over as she was able to fold their belongings in about half the time Piper could, "I've had some practice."

"So you wanna drive or take the train up?"

"Oh no, I need the getaway car for a quick escape."

"They're not that bad Piper."

"Yeah this is coming from the same person who conventionally asked for their _permission_ before asking me to marry you," Piper rolled on the bed laughing, Alex looked at her begrudgingly and shook her head.

"The things I've done for you, you freaking punk. It was my attempt at formality, it was the least I could do for ruining their picture perfect aristocratic, waspy life for you."

"What would you have done if they said no?" still laughing.

"Married you anyway. I knew they wouldn't say no though, I'd already charmed them enough with my gentlelady ways," she batted her eyelashes animatedly.

* * *

Alex held a wooden Popi box on her lap while Piper drove up the Merritt Parkway. Their friends hadn't given them the opportunity to tell them their baby news, and though excited, she was nervous for Piper's parents' reaction.

"Alex this is a mean Mex casserole," Cal spooned his second servings into a bowl, "it has a wicked kick."

Piper leaned forward and rubbed her chest, in an attempt to ease her heartburn.

"Yeah there's about 6 jalapenos, chili powder, and spiced tomatoes in there."

Piper groaned, drawing Carol's attention to her, "Piper honey don't slouch," she pushed her shoulder back slightly; interestingly enough she felt a little better.

Alex wriggled her shoulders back mocking Piper and smirked.

"I need a Tums," Piper pushed her chair back to go search for the antacid.

"Can you?.." Alex said a little too loudly, before cutting herself off.

Piper nudged her head toward the box, and Alex gave her a "no way" look. She wanted to surprise her parents before they continued with the theme and figured it out before they had the opportunity to tell them.

Piper rolled her eyes as she got up from the table to retrieve the box. She handed it to her mother and asked her dad to sit beside her, "it's for both of you from both of us. We really hope you like it."

"New products?" her father asked as her mother brought the box down into her lap. Carol lifted the wooden cover off the box and moved the long multicolored paper confetti to the side. There was a cloth diaper held together with oversized safety pins. Piper's father's eyes went watery and his nose started to get red. Her mother lifted the diaper and read the stitching on the front, "open at your own risk," she read aloud, her voice shaking. Alex cracked a laugh, amused with her creative contribution. She undid the safety pin and revealed a silver frame with a sonogram photo and a little note that said, "Can't wait to meet you Grammy and Gramps."

"Seriously Piper?," her mother asked through her cries, her hand on her chest, "is it yours?"

"Yes mom! Who else's baby do you think it is?"

"Well I don't know how you go about doing this, I never thought this was going to happen!" she said half laughing, half crying.

"Yeah well my ancient eggs are still cracking mother. All of the tests came back normal."

"Oh you girls are going to give me a heart attack." She put the frame down and hugged her daughter.

Piper looked over to her father, his head laying on the table over his crossed arms, he was a mess. "Daddy!" She hugged him around his shoulders from behind.

"When is my grandbaby supposed to be here?," was all he could manage to mutter.

"Sometime in February, it's still early."

"How are you feeling Piper?" her mother asked.

"We'll now I have indigestion thanks to Alex's supersized 7 layer casserole. I wanted some tums or something but I don't know if it's safe, I'll just deal with it."

"Tums are fine, I lived on them when I carried both of you, I'll go get you some." It should've been more obvious that she could ask her mother questions like this, she'd gone through this twice but it all just started to sink in. She felt lucky for the extra invaluable resource in her mother, when she looked over at Alex. Alex gave her a wink, but in that moment she could tell she missed her mother terribly and wished that she could share this with her as well. Alex's expression didn't change much, but she could feel her wife's heartache from across the table. She came over towards Cal, resting her cheek on Alex's head.

Cal picked up the frame and put it next to Alex's face, "gnarly, good work, but it looks nothing like you." He hooked his arm around Alex shoulder,

"Haaaa," she replied.

"Is my sister not dramatic enough for you? You're adding hormones and another Chapman to this mix?"

"I guess I can't get enough of you guys, I must be some kind of masochist," she punched Cal in arm.

"Um it'll be Vauseman, yes?" Piper massaged her wife's shoulder. Alex looked up not expecting this decision right now, and managed a closed mouthed smile, "I like it, I concur."

"Vauseman?" Carol came back with the bottle of Tums, "I love it, it sounds noble."

Piper chatted with her family and Alex whispered to her that she was going to sit outside for a minute. Alex walked out on their back porch and sat on the bottom step and rubbed her feet in the grass. She looked out into the trees, she could hear birds among the branches. She played with the end of her hair and fought hard against the sentimentality that was trying to overcome her from within. "It's not fair, I miss you," she said out loud toward the trees. She spoke out loud rarely but she always felt her mother heard her more when she did instead of letting the conversations roll around in her head.

She heard the door close behind her, she really just wanted a minute alone, to be vulnerable, and yet be angry that she was left alone too soon without her biggest support. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand when she heard the wood creaking down the stairs behind her. "I'm fine Piper really, I just needed a sec."

A tea towel was laid on the step beside her, as Carol sat atop it and placed her hand on Alex's knee, "and how are you feeling Alex?"

Not expecting the voice, she released the gasp that caught in her throat. "I'm ok. I'm really very excited about everything. I feel so lucky to have the world with Piper, she means everything to me. I'm feeling relieved that you both are happy for our baby."

"And?"

"And what?" Alex shook her head, not knowing what her mother in law was getting at.

"What else are you feeling?"

Alex lost it. She sat on her hands and turned away from Carol Chapman. Why couldn't she just be left alone? Over the years, she didn't feel the need to put up the same front she once emanated. She had learned to trust and let down her defenses. She'd _never_ been close with Pipers mother, their relationship permitted the exchange of kind words and cordiality, it was a notch above _forced_, walking on eggshells. So why was she now extending herself, showing this new found interest in her all of a sudden?

What the hell. "I'm glad Piper has you to guide her with questions and you can share what your experience was with her, it just makes me miss my mother so much more than I already do every day."

Carol nodded her head and tightened her lips. "I know I'm not your mother Alex, nothing will ever take that pain away. You learn to adapt, but it doesn't go away. You and Piper, you're both my daughters now. I have things that I hope you both can learn from me, but I've learned a great deal from the both of you, I just want you to know that, and that you too can always come to us… if you needed to. My grandbaby needs two strong, healthy mommies. You both do a fine job of taking care of one another but sometimes you need help. It's here, alright?"

"Noted. Thanks Carol." She stood and helped Carol up and walked inside.

* * *

The cold rubber of the exam table sent chills over her body, as she reclined onto her back and raised her shirt and tucked it under her bra. Alex sat on the edge of the table and held her hand. The sonographer dimmed the lights and emptied, what felt like, half a bottle of cold gel over her torso and began the scan. The sonographer stated aloud what he was seeing and measuring, "crown rump length, your baby is measuring to be about 19 weeks, right on target." He moved the probe slowly, "face, orbits, nose, mouth," he moved it slowly across her whole abdomen, "spine, hands, kidney, bladder, stomach, femurs, feet." He changed the colors on the black and white screen, "that's the cord, and that's the blood flow through it, there's two arteries, one vein, the flow looks good, there's the placenta, and the fluid level around the baby looks great." Piper felt the squeeze from Alex's hand. "Do you want to know the gender?"

Piper shook her head, "no."

"What? Are you serious? I want to know!," she hopped off the table.

The sonographer turned the light back on and handed Piper a towel to wipe herself off with.

Piper wiped off the gel and handed the towel to Alex, Alex snatched it from her hand.

"Hey, what's with the grabbing? It'll be nice if it's a surprise. It will give me more motivation to push at the end."

Alex reflected a face that looked as if she had eaten something sour and raised a hand, "I'm not there yet. What the heck though, can I at least know if I promise not to tell you?"

"Yeah right, you'll slip."

The sonographer chimed in, "I'll just write it on a card and seal it in an envelope. If you ever change your mind, you'll have the option to open it and know whenever you want."

Piper agreed, and accepted the envelope. Alex took it and immediately held it up to the light.

"Oh my gosh, give me that," she swiped it from the brunette's hands.

She tried to take it back from Piper as they walked out of the office and got into their car to drive to Polly's for lunch.

"Just give it to me, I won't look at it. I'll put it away at home somewhere in a drawer."

"Yeah right, you'll look it at it the second I'm gone!

"I won't!"

"You're such a shitty liar!"

"I used to be an amazing liar," Piper cut her eyes at her.

"What?" she shrugged her shoulders, "I was."

"Are you bragging about it?" Piper looked at her offended.

"Hey, I _was_. I wouldn't lie to you now, don't look at me that way," she leaned over towards the passenger seat, her lips inches from Pipers, she pushed them out slightly, making them look fuller.

Piper closed her eyes slowly then reopened them and peered at Alex, as if she wasn't amused.

Alex subtly licked her lips, "mmm, hmm…" she breathed out a soft chortle, "right," she looked the blonde up and down.

_Irresistible_. Piper fought the urge for all of 5 seconds more before she pressed her lips against Alex's, and moaned satisfied.

Alex relaxed back into her seat fulfilled with her small victory and started the ignition.

Piper breathed away her tension, "you're still not getting this" she raised the envelope and put it in her purse.

Alex dragged her nails up all the way up Pipers thigh, danced her fingers over her sensitive spot like a piano and drawled, "we'll see."

She pulled away from the curb and drove toward Polly's. Piper looked out the window and watched cars fly by them on the highway. "Um Al, is there a reason the church elders are passing us?"

Alex turned her head slightly toward Piper, trying not to take her eyes off the road. She caught Piper's eyes and then placed her hand on Piper's belly, and rubbed her thumb back and forth. "Just trying to keep you and Mookie safe."

Piper snorted a laugh. "Mookie?"

Alex bit her lip and smiled, "yeah," she said shrugging her shoulders, as if it was a completely reasonable name, "and it's going to be Mookie for another 5 months because you won't just let me open the damn envelope!"

"Mookie it is then."

They arrived at Polly's and walked around the side of the house to the backyard. The patio table had a few plates set out, and a bowl of chips and dip.

"Pippy!," Finn shouted and ran over to his honorary aunt, he hadn't seen her all month. Piper crouched down and hugged him; she inhaled his scent, "syrup and cheese," she mouthed up at Alex. Polly walked out holding a large platter of assorted sandwiches and set it on the table. Finn turned and looked up at Alex as she tousled his hair and leaned his head against her leg. He traced his fingers along Pipers abdomen, "Pippy, why is your tummy big?," she laughed gently.

"Finn, that's not polite, you don't ask people that," Polly snapped at him.

"That's okay," she replied sitting down. Alex handed a box of pastries to Polly before she walked back into her house to get more food; she sat in a chair near Piper.

"Finn, Alex and I are going to have a baby."

"You're getting a baby?" Piper nodded at him, "mmm hmmm." Alex crossed her arms over her chest and watched their interaction.

"From where?," he asked. Alex laughed out loud.

"It's in here Finn," she placed her hands on the swell of her skin.

"Can we take it out?" he asked confusedly. Polly walked back out with a bowl of pasta salad and watched her son with his aunt.

"Not yet, it still needs to grow. It's going to feel like a long time so we have to be patient."

"What's the baby's name?"

"We don't know yet buddy," Alex told him. She whispered into his ear.

"Is it a boy baby or a girl baby?," he asked excitedly sharing the question.

"Oh Alex, really?"

"Oh Ayix, really?" he repeated with a similar expression.

"What, you didn't find out?," Polly asked surprised.

"No! Can you believe _this one_ doesn't want to know?" she said pointing her thumb toward Piper.

"You need to let this go." Piper looked at Alex while reaching into her purse.

"Can you hold this somewhere so _this one_ doesn't hire a search party to raid our home?," she handed Polly the envelope.

Alex let her mouth drop down, "oh, so you trust her, but not me? Well that's nice."

"You want to know a little bit too much my dear. Does it really matter? What are you going to do differently?"

"You can get all the stuff prepared!," Polly chimed in. "Everything is going to be green and yellow."

"Unknowable universe, what _will _the neighbors say"?

"It would just help me get used to what Mookie might look like and visualize us with him or her before they're here," Alex relayed her two cents realizing it wouldn't be enough. She reluctantly handed the plate of food she'd created over to Piper. Piper smiled childishly.

"What does the baby eat?," he asked his aunt offering her a chip.

"Whatever I eat." She bit the chip that Finn held out for her.

"Does the baby like chips?"

"Mookie, Finn, call the baby Mookie." Alex encouraged him. He nodded, he bit his tongue between his teeth.

"Of course, but the baby also likes pasta salad." She fed him a forkful before she fed herself. He curiously watched her eat her pasta.

"Does the roni's fall on Mookie's head?," he asked with a concerned unsure face.

Alex cackled deeply.

"No Mookie moves out the way."

Finn scampered off and found a ball. Alex tossed it back and forth with him and tried to teach him how to get in front of it, and use two hands, stagger his legs to help it go further. They came back over to the table for dessert. Finn climbed onto Alex's lap and tried to pull her leg up higher on the chair. She usually sat crossed legged and he liked to sit in the middle. He squirmed around a little digging his boney butt into Alex's leg, until she picked up and said, "alright kid, you win", she sat on the grass with him and he plopped down in her lap.

Polly shook her head and apologized.

Piper turned towards the pair and pushed her toes into Alex's knee when she felt something weird. Her leg straightened against Alex, she looked like she was thinking hard.

"Pipes what's the matter are you ok?," She stood Finn upright.

"Yeah yeah, I'm fine. I think I can feel the baby moving." Her inhalation was staggered. "It felt like a swimming fish or something."

"Oh yeah I forgot about those little movements!," Polly remembered excitedly.

"It felt so weird!," her eyebrows remained pressed inward, her eyes looked up, still thinking.

"Mookie really likes chips and roni salad!"

Alex looked over still really concerned, almost frowning. Piper laughed at her. "Alex I'm fine. It didn't hurt or anything, I just felt it for a second."

"Okay I don't care if Mookie is a boy or a girl, just as long as it's alright. You sure that's all it was?"

"Alex, I-am-fine. Sit down." She watched the brunette drag her hand over her face. 5 more months.

* * *

Borrowed Mookie from an episode of the King of Queens


	5. Chapter 5

Thanks to all again for the reviews. They mean so much, please keep them coming!

Short update, but it's all I have at the moment.

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5

The crop circle of cray pas, protractors, sketches, and architectural plans surrounded her wife on the floor of their office. Her blue print tube lay by her hip as she knelt on the floor sketching ideas for the art design of their newest project. She stood in the doorway, the light from the desk cast a glow over the brunette's shiny dark head as it bopped along to the Alabama Shake's "Always Alright." She stood admiringly, watching her wife go through her process for a while before she spoke,

"In your zone?"

She looked over her shoulder acknowledging the voice, "Hey babe, yeah, I didn't even hear you come in." Alex pushed herself up onto her knees to receive her kiss from Piper. The blonde took a seat in their luxury leather office rolling chair and exhaled loudly. She twisted slightly cracking her back. Watching her wife while she worked always turned her on, lately she longed for the brunette more than ever.

"How was your day?" the brunette asked, raising her glasses up onto her head, "how are you feeling?," she asked, stroking her wife's tummy.

"We're fine. I've had a headache that's lingered all day though." Before she had been able to say anything else, Alex had put her hand up and walked out the room. Piper felt catered to before her pregnancy, but Alex had taken indulging her to a whole new level. She returned with a Tylenol and a frosty glass bottle of Coke. Piper caught her eye when she returned, relaying a _you're ridiculous and I'm perfectly capable of obtaining my own remedies _look, as Alex shrugged her shoulders and smiled, she knew that look and somewhere within she agreed, but she couldn't help herself.

"The movements are so much stronger Al! I felt it a lot in this spot earlier," she moved her hand over to a particular patch of skin. Alex had tried to catch the movements that Piper felt throughout the week failing to feel the bumps underneath her hand. She sipped her coke and a few minutes later, and felt the roll of her baby from one side to the other.

"Come here!," she beckoned Alex with her hand. She placed Alex's hand underneath her own against the space where she felt the roll.

"I can't feel it Pipes, it's probably still too early."

"Just wait for it." She kept her hands firmly on top of Alex's. She wanted Alex to be able to feel their baby as often as she had been able to but perhaps the movement was too light.

Alex breathed air out her nose and waited for ten minutes, her knees pained from remaining in the same position, she readjusted, but kept her hand put. She leaned onto her left hip, and rested her head on Pipers thigh, "Mookie, I have stuff to get done."

The corner of Piper's mouth dipped down, her patience was running thin as well. She took another sip of her coke, and felt a bump from within.

"Whoa!," Alex's jaw dropped and her eyes widened, "I felt it!" She kept her hand perfectly still. She pushed the coke bottle back to Pipers lips, "it's the caffeine!" Piper took another swig and swallowed, she felt Mookie roll around again. Alex wiggled with excitement and put her other hand against Piper, a huge smile breaking across her face.

"Great another caffeine addict in this house, just what I need!" She let Alex lean against her for a few more minutes while Mookie went wild, before guiding Alex's hand higher until it cupped her breast causing the brunette to raise her eyebrows. She went with it and began to massage her hands over Piper's chest. Piper hiked up her skirt allowing easier access, seeking the sensuality of Alex's touch. She felt Alex's hand caress her leg, increasing her need, she kissed the brunette's mouth lasciviously. Alex guided her onto the desk, laid her on her back and removed her underwear. She sat across Pipers legs, and leaned forward on her elbows careful not to press all her weight against her and began kissing her, whispering dirty things in her ear causing Piper to hotly moan.

"I'm so horny Al, touch me," she panted out.

"Where do you want me sexy lady?," Alex asked her huskily through closed teeth. She teased her opening with two fingers.

Piper felt her hips raise up responding to the touch she desired to feel inside her, when she felt waves rolling between their skin, making them both freeze still. She couldn't stifle her laughter,

"You feel it too?," Alex bit her tongue between her teeth, she nodded her head through hooded eyelids.

"I can't do this now!," Alex raised herself off her elbow and stood up next to their desk.

Piper slowly pushed herself upright, keeping herself supported by her hands. "What? Are you kidding me? Just give it a second, the baby will calm down!"

Alex bit her bottom lip, and laughed nervously, "_that_ was really weird Pipes."

"Well you're going to need to get over it!," she said matter of factly. "You weren't weirded out 10 minutes ago!"

"Yeah, but it's weird to feel Mookie move when I'm in the middle of fu-," she changed her voice to a whisper, "slipping files into your folder!"

Piper guffawed, "why are you whispering?"

"I'm all too aware of the kid now," she poked at Pipers middle.

"The kid can't hear you."

Alex's mind ran rampant, "Mookie sooooo can hear me! This is insane." It was all too surreal and overwhelming for her to comprehend.

"We'll look into it later. I want you….. _now_, and I can't help but feel this kid all day, so you're going to need to get your shit together and get-over-it."

Alex took her hand and moved to their bedroom. She began to kiss her again and turned her onto her side, spooning her from behind. She brushed her hair away from her neck, and sucked around her pulse point and breathed hotly against her skin. She grazed her inner thigh, from her knee to the palpable wetness. She bent Piper's upper leg at the knee and glided her fingers in gently.

"Now we're talking, finally!"

"Are you comfortable?"

"Geez your sexual charisma is at its peak today. Stop talking and just let me feel you."

"Wow, this moodiness is really attractive. Please continue."

Piper rolled onto her back, and took Alex's face in her hands and kissed her hard, "just fuck me Alex."

Alex kissed down the length of her body until her mouth breathed against her wife's saturated center. She licked and sucked and teased until the feet that rested on her shoulders started pushing her away, and demanded that she feel her hand inside her. Two expert fingers were thrust inside, smoothly they moved deeper and retracted almost slipping out, causing Piper to moan each time she thought she'd lose contact. Piper sought Alex's other hand against the bed, squeezed it tightly as she felt her whole body heat up. "I'm gonna cum, don't stop." Alex quickened her pace, while licking Pipers hardened button until she felt the blonde shake uncontrollably around her mouth and fingers, eventually becoming still.

Piper turned back onto her side, her breathing now shallow. Alex fit her body behind her once again, stroking the damp skin down her back under her tank top and followed it to her bottom. She stroked her skin lightly, sending chills over the blonde's body. "I'm mildly obsessed with this ass," she said tapping it lightly.

"Stop it, I thank the stars for skirts and dresses, pants do not love these hips right now."

She squeezed her hip firmly, "yeah well there's just more of it for me to love," she said and she kissed the crease between her hip and her abdomen.

Piper used her arm to push herself upright and swung her legs over the bed. "What do you want for dinner?"

"I'll handle that, what do _you _want?"

"I don't know." She padded down the hall, into the kitchen and over to the fridge, she browsed, nothing met her fancy. "I kind of just want fruit or something light," she opens and closes the crisper with her foot, rattling the lone apple inside.

"I'm just gonna get some stuff at the fruit stand downstairs. Where's my underwear?"

Alex grabs her hands and sits her down on the couch in their living room. Piper is about to protest and stand up when Alex snaps her fingers and points down at the couch.

"Me hunt the food, you grow the baby. I'll be right back." She grabbed her keys and took the stairs to the fruit stand. She grabbed kiwis, blueberries, strawberries, bananas, raspberries, bananas, clementines, and a small melon.

She chops the fruit and makes Piper a fruit salad, storing the rest in individual Tupperware for next few mornings' breakfasts. She brings the oversized bowl over to Piper on the couch, and props the blonde's feet on a pillow over their coffee table.

"Al, this bowl is Shrek sized, c'mon!"

"Just eat it." She opens the internet icon on her phone, her eyes dance wildly, then puts the phone down on the couch next to her wife, "I win." Piper reads through the text, _week 25, baby can hear. _She sees Alex saunter over to the bookshelf and peruses over many titles before narrowing it down, "Jane Austen or Roald Dahl?"

"I don't think I can handle child abuse right now… Austen." She forks a piece of kiwi and sucks it off the metal tines.

She lifts the book off the shelf, plopping down on the couch beside Piper, and lays the back of her head against her legs. "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife….humph, and lucky to have one!" Piper feeds a raspberry to the brunette, letting her suck it from her fingers. Piper closes her eyes and listens intently to the words from Alex's lips, she's read Pride and Prejudice many times before, but a book always sounds so different when read aloud by her wife. She continues to listen to her wife reading, but her mind wanders off thinking of Miss Bingley and their admiration of books, "I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book!" She feels Mookie moving again, and in a daze grabs Alex's hand, causing the book to close, and places it under her shirt so she can feel. Alex stops reading, unable to see the words on the page, and Mookie stops.

"Keep going," Piper gently whispers. Alex balances the book on her chest and holds it open with one hand, keeping the other against Piper and begins to read again. Piper sees the color flow into Alex's cheeks, as they feel their baby dance at the sound of it's mothers voice.


	6. Chapter 6

Another little update. Chapter 7 is written and will be up in a few, editing it now. Thanks AGAIN for the reviews. Every SINGLE one is read, multiple times as I log on throughout out the day searching for added chapters to my favorite stories. I'm glad others are interested in my fluff.

Oh and Vauseman, I LOVED Archetypes!

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6

The scan gun beeped as Piper added another pack of swaddle blankets to their registry.

"Honestly though where in the hell are we going to put all of this? The spare already has a full dresser, so we don't need this," she points to the dresser on the scanned items list and deletes it, "and a Diaper Genie is disgusting, it's like a lazy Susan of dirty diaper storage, no thanks," she says as she removes that item as well. "I will personally walk each smelly diaper down the hall and throw it down the compactor, Vause's honor," she swears with two fingers slightly above her forehead.

"It's just to store them for a few days. I want to get the cloth diapers and look into getting a service to pick them up twice a week to launder them, it's better for the environment," Piper ranted on, as Alex looked at her over the top of her glasses, "but that might get really expensive, maybe we could just do it ourselves." Alex slid her glasses on top of her head and motioned with her hand that she was slitting her throat, "heck no, that's disgusting, throwing shitty diapers into the washing machine, no freaking way Pipes, and what the heck is a co-sleeper?"

She widens her hands to about the size of a loaf of bread. "How does a person this big require all of this stuff?" She runs a nervous hand through her raven colored shoulder length hair.

Piper replies annoyed, "the co-sleeper is so that I can nurse in the middle of the night and that we can sleep restfully without having to worry about one of us rolling over and crushing Mookie alright?" Alex facepalmed and rubbed her eyes hard before replacing her glasses. She walked slowly down the aisle and read the tags for the various co-sleepers. There were some that looked like foam covered boats, others that resembled a playpen. Piper walked further down the aisle, while Alex grabbed tags from 3 different products and sat cross legged on the floor behind her. When the blonde turned around she saw Alex sitting on the floor,

"Are you protesting? Is this your way of telling me you've had enough? Because we can always come back another time or add items online."

Alex silently read through the stats on the tags.

"Al?" She nudged her knee with her toe, "please don't make me bend down, it's too much right now."

The brunette pulled out her phone and started sliding her finger around the screen of her phone. "I just want to read some of the consumer reports for these. Keep going I'll find you in a minute. Add whatever you want to the list, except that Diaper Genie or cloth diapers, I have to have _some standards_." Piper caressed her wife's head and walked a few aisles over to the carriages. A little while later, Alex found her,

"I like this one. Its safety rating is really high and it's supposed to be really easy to move the kid next to you without crowding the bed, and look," she said excitedly, "it's portable so we can collapse it and it can turn into a play pen if we go to visit your folks."

"That's great, add it," she passed the laser gun to Alex.

"Don't you want to look through and compare the stats?"

"No, I trust you, just add it."

"What if I picked the wrong one?"

"You didn't, you wouldn't pick the wrong one. And if you did, well then, you did." She turned back toward the carriages, rolling a couple a few feet around the aisle.

Alex took a step closer, placed her hand on her shoulder, turning Piper toward her,

"But what if I did! Piper every decision we make now impacts this kid." The look of panic in her eyes, was not one Piper saw in her often, but recognized her own face through her wife's eyes. Piper released the bit of tension she felt moments earlier and spoke,

"Al?" she asked with a tone getting the brunette to stop her pacing. "It hits me sometimes like this too; just breathe for a second." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

"Look at me." She opened her eyes and stared at her wife with a look that said, _nothing you can say right now is going to change the way I feel_. "I have to pep talk myself every time I take a Tylenol or the days I skip morning yoga on the fitness channel. Sometimes were going to just do things that are not _the best_ and that's okay. Sometimes we consciously know it's not the best, and sometimes we really don't know what we're doing, like everyone else who did this before us. This is a normal process, were going to be fine. Mookie is going to be fine. Yes we need to read about stuff, I don't want to go into this in a completely moronic fashion, but I don't want to obsess over everything either, we're going to burn ourselves out."

Alex continued to look at her not convinced. "That's great and all but …."

"Alex if my mother and your mother raised two girls that are happy and successful members of society, you don't think we can too?"

Alex gritted her teeth "yeah and we both ended up in prison, Piper."

"And we'll make sure we use our experience to make sure that doesn't happen to our kid."

Alex rolled her eyes and shook her head. She placed her hands on the grips of the carriage and nervously wheeled it back and forth,

"sometimes I just want to scream 'c'mon kid, move your ass, what's taking so long?' and other times this wave of fear just kind of consumes me and makes me realize how much I'm really not ready at the same time."

Piper nodded her head in complete understanding, "I know Alex I do too. There are days where my body is sore and I just want to be done. But then I say okay maybe we're supposed to go through this for 40 weeks because we need the time. We really are so desperate to meet our child by then that all the doubt and anxiety just kind of stops mattering, you know?"

"I just want the kid to be ok. I don't want to screw it up."

"You're not going to screw up our child Alex, we're both going to make mistakes but both of us can't be type A about everything. I need you to forgive me when I make a bad call and I'll be able to do the same for you."

"You just take really good care of yourself, and I really appreciate it because you're giving our baby the best chance at being healthy. It's a lot of pressure to keep it going."

"Don't give me all of the credit, you take good care of me and you'll do the same with Mookie. Yes sometimes you hover over me and it makes me feel pathetic and you drive me crazy…"

"I drive _you_ crazy? What about your ridiculous snoring on the nights you actually manage to fall asleep on your back or the way your ass is all over my side of the bed because of that ridiculous body pillow that replaced me- taking up your whole side… we might as well sell tickets for people to vacation on top of that thing!"

Piper pecked her and thanked her for her endurance. They agreed to continue shopping another day when Alex insisted on needing more time to compare user satisfaction and product recalls.

* * *

Piper dragged each hanger over the horizontal metal pole in the bedroom closet, looking for her cardigan.

"You ready Pipes?," Alex folded the page with measurements and put it in her bag.

"Yep, can't believe you convinced Nicky to go in exchange for food," she laughed, slipping on a pair of ballet flats.

"She wants to help, she just tries to suppress how thrilled she is to be an aunt, must be the baboon heart."

Alex waited near the door with Piper's coat draped over her arm.

"Ah I can't it's too hot for that." Chills ran over Alex's body, "Piper it's November, just take it at least."

"I'll just wear a cardigan," and she headed through the door.

"Where's your sweater?"

Piper's eyes looked over the pale skin of her arms and laughed, "placenta brain, I left it in the room."

They picked up Nicky on the way to the hardware store to pick out a paint color and some light fixtures to start to transform the guest room into a nursery. Alex enlisted in Nicky's help to paint and make a day of friendly bonding which Nicky agreed to under the condition that Piper made her homemade chili.

After laying out 20 somewhat variations of the same color swatch, they settled on a tiffany blue color and got to work in the early afternoon. Alex and Nicky spread the drop cloths throughout the room and started opening the paint cans while Piper brought in some brushes, paint rollers and blue tape.

"C'mon Pipes out, it's not good to be breathing in all these fumes, you'll help with the finer details of decorating another day after the paint had time to dry and the room can air out."

The blonde pouted slightly and turned her back away from the two women and walked out.

She returned with a mask fashioned from a maxi pad and hair ties, dunked a brush in the paint can and painted near the baseboard moldings around the circumference of the room.

"Oh oh, _owned_, as usual Vause," retorted the wild haired blonde slapping Piper easily on the back. As the first layer was near dry, Piper sat on the floor, while Alex went around and touched up missed spots. Nicky moved the ladder to the center of the room, uninstalling the light fixture in the center.

"Hey Chapman, how many lesbians does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

Piper smiled through her mask and raised her shoulders, "I don't know Nicky, how many?"

"Four. One to change it, two to organize the potluck and one to write a folk song about the empowering experience."

Piper laughed out loud and leaned back on her hands admiring their afternoon's work. Alex grabbed her hands to hoist her up, and she went out to the kitchen to start working on their chili for dinner.

A few hours later, with paint splotches over their ears, cheeks and in their hair, Alex and Nicky, washed up and made their way into the kitchen. Nicky had a seat at their new yet small dining room table and Alex brought out some bowls and tortilla chips over, and she set the pot of chili in the center.

"Ooooh, I can use my new cloth napkins!," Piper headed down toward the linen cabinet to retrieve paisley printed fabric.

"Oh goody!," Nicky mocked her sarcastically earning her a kick in the shin from Alex.

"Eh, what the fuck, I'm just messing with her."

Piper returned and handed them each a napkin, sat down and placed one over her lap.

Nicky inhaled the aroma of the chili, and pointed to it snapping her fingers. Piper ladled a few scoops into each bowl, Alex sprinkled some shredded cheddar over the top, already surpassing her series of moans and she burned her mouth tasting it too soon. Nicky dove in, it was one of her favorite dishes that Piper made. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, ignoring the napkin. Piper stared at her with a slight frown.

"Hey blondie, why do lesbians suck at cooking?"

Piper hardened her stare and Alex pulled her foot back ready to re-launch another kick when Nicky answered,

"because they always eat out."

All three women laughed in hysterics.

"No but seriously College you are a beast when it comes to this chili, what the hell is in this crack cocaine?"

"Nah, maybe some LSD, the list is long believe you me," she said spooning a mouthful of hearty beans and vegetables into her mouth. "Hey Nicky you think you can call me Piper?"

Nicky mulled the thought over for a split second, "Pipe-her? I hardly knew'er!" she said, slapping her leg, Alex almost choked on her chili laughing.

"Oh my gad am I on a roll today or what?"


	7. Chapter 7

Ok second update of the day, make sure you don't skip over Chapter 6 (though very short). Hope you all like. All feedback is genuinely appreciated. Any ideas or things youd like to see, feel free to PM or leave in the reviews.

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7

Black Friday at Popi had been rough; with their holiday themed scents, they were swamped this year far more than they had been in the past. Piper hadn't remembered it being so busy in past seasons without time for a break, and in the middle of this particular day, she regretted brainstorming on ways to increase profits for the holiday season.

She came home late that day, following multiple text messages from Alex asking if she was alright and if she was on her way home.

"It was intense today. Polly had me sit for the majority of the day but even then, it was just customer after customer after customer. We brought in a lot of revenue though," she sat at the dining room table telling about her day.

She tried straightening her back to ease the soreness at the base, but felt no relief. She was glad Alex hadn't been able to see her face as she flitted about the kitchen. She scrunched her face and scooted to the edge of the chair letting her knees dip down stretching out the muscles and ligaments that attached her uterus to her groin but that caused a shooting pain and she immediately sat back. Alex brought in a tall glass of water and set it down on the table before returning to the kitchen. Piper gulped it down and conversed with Alex about the details of her day. She tried to lean back again fifteen minutes later, but it was useless; every time she moved, the pain would repeat. She went to their bedroom and changed into a t-shirt and shorts. She felt hot and turned the AC onto 64 degrees.

"It's freezing in here Pipes! Why is the air on?"

"I'm so hot Al, I'm sorry, is it really that cold? It feels so much better like this."

Alex spazzily jogged in place before heading to their bedroom to put thick socks and sweats over her leggings and long sleeved shirt. She came back to the table and proceeded to try to have a normal conversation despite the fact that she and her wife looked like they belonged on different continents.

After a late dinner they went off to bed. Alex wrapped herself in their comforter like a burrito, while Piper lay completely uncovered on her side. Shortly after she could hear Alex breathing deeply, fast asleep. She was pretty sure she could toss and turn and not arouse the brunette but she didn't want to risk it so she sat up slowly. She adjusted her weight on the bed, letting her legs hang off the side for a minute before pushing herself off the bed and closing the bedroom door behind her. Her back ached, and she had cramping pain in her lower abdomen. It was hard to stay still so she tried changing positions a few times on the couch, until she found a comfortable one lying on her side. She nods off to sleep to be awoken 20 minutes later by the gnawing pain in her body. She breathes through the pain and lets out a soft whimper. She feels like she needs to pee, but she can't get up. Just the thought of getting up, makes the pain return again. It goes away for another solid twenty minutes so she gets to the bathroom and pees the smallest amount. She flushes the toilet and Alex opens her eyes at the noise, but drifts back off to sleep. She slowly makes her way back to the couch and tries to find comfort in the position she relaxed in before. Alex reaches out in their bed to find empty space and gets up to find the bathroom empty and Piper lying curled up on the couch.

"Pipes?," she comes over to her more quickly, "babe what's wrong?"

Piper raises a hand to her, implying that she needs a minute before she speaks, "I think I'm having contractions."

Alex blinks furiously and tries to remain calm, "for how long? Should I take you to the hospital?"

"I think they're just those early contractions, the Braxton Hicks ones." She feels another pain and starts breathing more heavily.

"But how do you know?," Piper raised her hand again.

"I," she breathes, "don't." She adjusts her position to the other side, facing the inside of the couch, her back to Alex. "I've had them on and off since I left work."

"Piper I really think we should go to the hospital."

"I really don't want to go," she whimpers out fighting tears.

She re-adjusts her glasses, and slips a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear. "Okay, but what about the hotline number at the hospital? I can call that at least."

"Yeah okay," she breathes out and nods into the couch.

Alex snatched the card off the refrigerator and called the number.

"Labor and delivery hotline, how can I help you?"

"Hi, my wife has been having pain all night, she thinks they're contractions but she isn't sure."

"Okay, is your wife able to talk through them?," Alex put the phone on speaker. "She asked if you could talk through the pain."

"Yeah, I can, some of them."

"Ok good, what's your name?"

"Piper Chapman."

"Hold on just a second, let me just pull up your chart here. Ok Piper, and how many weeks are you?"

"32, this is my first baby, I don't know what I'm feeling exactly."

"Where does the pain start?"

"It starts in my lower back, but my lower back always hurts so I don't know if it's related or not, it just hurts more now and it moves to the front and the whole front gets really tight."

"Can you tell me how often you're getting the pain?"

"It's not in any pattern…," she's forced the move the phone away from her face for about 30 seconds or so and then completes her sentence, "it's not in any pattern, its maybe 2 or 3 times in one hour, I don't know."

"Okay and do you feel your baby moving around?"

Piper maternally rested her hand on her belly, having been preoccupied with her own pain she hadn't paid attention. Alex bit her lip and dragged her teeth inward.

"Yeah, my baby is moving around like normal."

"That's great, any bleeding or leaking fluid? Any pain or discomfort when you try to urinate?"

"No, not at all."

"Do you notice if it's worse or more often when you move around or lie down?"

"No, I'm not sure."

"Alright well that's good news and bad news. Bad news is it sounds like contractions. Good news is the pain doesn't seem to be close enough to be preterm labor. It sounds like Braxton Hicks contractions, but the only way I could tell you for sure is if you come in. I know it's late so try drinking lots of water throughout the next hour or so and try lie still and rest. Try not to move around too much. If its preterm labor those pains will keep coming regardless of how much you drink and rest, but if its Braxton Hicks they'll go away with some rest and hydration. The two things that cause most people to have early contractions are dehydration and urinary tract infections and it doesn't seem like you have one, most of us are chronically dehydrated anyway. I'm looking through your chart and you don't have risk factors for preterm labor so try drinking lots of water and rest. No matter what call me back in an hour, but if the pain starts coming every 10 minutes or 5 times in one hour, just come in, alright?"

"Okay," they both said in unison, "thank you so much" Alex continued.

"Not a problem, call me in an hour."

Alex looked over at Piper, "did you drink enough today?"

Piper shook her head "no" as a tear escaped from the corner of her eye and fell horizontally across the bridge of her nose and onto the couch.

Alex leaned over and kissed her temple. She got up toward the kitchen to get a glass of water for Piper. She wanted to punch the wall, she was so angry and sick to her stomach when she saw Piper in pain.

"I'm going to kill Polly, she's supposed to look out for you while you're at work," she spoke loudly.

"She did Al, she told me to go in the back to rest and eat. I just kept getting caught up with a new customer each time I would get up to rest in the back, she probably didn't notice I never really got a break," she tried defending her friend and tried taking responsibility for her own neglect. Her eyes burned with tears, her nose became congested as she sniffled in, she felt so guilty, this could've been prevented.

"Hey, shhh, shhh, drink this." She helped Piper sit up and brought the glass to her mouth to drink. She set the glass back on their coffee table, sat on the couch and propped the blonde wavy head onto her lap.

"I can't lay on my back, I can't breathe like this," she inhaled in a staggered fashion turning onto her side. Alex stuck a pillow between her lap and Pipers head and stroked her long hair back, wiping away her tears with her thumb. "Stop crying. You need to be calm and just rest, keep drinking the water."

She took a few more gulps of the water and rested her head back down, calming down.

"Why didn't you tell me you were feeling so bad? And your back always hurts? I could've helped you Piper." She brought the glass to her wife again, until she finished. She got up and refilled the glass and brought it back over to the couch.

"I didn't want to worry you about something, if it ended up going away on its own."

"I'm supposed to worry Piper! That's what I'm here for, to worry and take care of you, you're doing everything."

Piper drank the water quickly, convinced if she swallowed the water quickly, it would drown the tears that were working their way into her eyes again.

"I'm sorry, I should've told you."

"I should've known though too. Of course you're back hurts, but you never said anything."

She sat on the edge of the table, while Piper finished the second glass of water, and brought her knee up to her chest removing her sock.

She brought the empty glass back into the kitchen. Piper heard the cabinet doors open and close and something that sounded like small rocks. She heard the beeping of the microwave, the opening of the refrigerator, the water pouring, the door of the fridge closing. Alex walked back in with a new glass of water with a straw hanging over the side and a weighted sock. She looped the loose end of the sock into a knot and told Piper to turn to her other side. The blonde turned into the couch and Alex pressed the sock against her lower back. Immediately the ache started to soothe, "what is that?"

"Warm uncooked rice." She held the sock against Pipers skin and massaged her hip with the other.

Piper leaned slightly over her shoulder, "your mom?"

Alex nodded. "She made them in the winter to keep my hands warm at night when the heat cut out. How does that feel?"

"Amazing. I've only had one more of those pains and it was like a joke compared to the others."

She stopped massaging her hip and put the glass in front of her holding the straw toward her mouth. Piper held the glass in place, and moved Alex's hand back to her hip. "It feels really good." Alex lowered her hand slightly, caressing Pipers bottom, until Piper swatted at her hand. Alex nuzzled next to it, nibbled it softly and rubbed it gently again teasingly. "I love it, sorry."

The hour passed and they checked in with the hospital letting them know things were resolving. They were told to keep their scheduled appointment for the following day but to come in if things picked up again.

Alex massaged the knots out of Pipers back for hours into the night, long after Piper fell asleep, she continued to knead the muscle and tissue that had been carrying the strain silently until today. She feared her wife would feel pain again if she moved her hands. She fell asleep on the side of the couch with her open palms against the now soothed flesh.

* * *

Piper was called into an exam room, and Alex accompanied her during their routine prenatal visit. Everything had gone smoothly thus far with the exception of the Braxton Hicks contractions from the prior night.

A midwife they had met with once before, Michelle, popped her head into the room, and asked if it was alright if a medical student came in just to take an updated version of her history and that she'd come in after to have their usual visit. Piper said it was fine and a few minutes later Dr. Haque, a student who looked about 25 came in with his short white jacket and a notepad.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Haque, I'm a medical student here, Ms. Chapman?"

"Yes?"

"How are you today? The midwife said it would be alright if I asked you a few questions and went over some things."

"Sure. I'm feeling fine, much better than yesterday."

"What happened yesterday?," he asked with concern.

"I was having some contractions last night but they went away after a few hours."

"None now though, right?"

"Nope, completely gone."

"And the baby is moving fine, no bleeding, no ruptured membranes?"

"What?"

"Broken water, do you think you broke your water?"

"Oh, no. And yes the baby is always moving fine, no bleeding."

"Alright well that sounds good. I'd like to send your urine out to test for bacteria, to rule out a urinary tract infection."

"That's fine if you think it's necessary, sure."

"I would really recommend it. And ok so you're about 32 weeks, have you thought about what you wanted to use for birth control once the baby is here?

Piper smiled, "excuse me?"

"Birth control, family planning? It's recommended that you space deliveries about 18 months apart to avoid complications. What methods have you used in the past?"

She turned towards Alex who looked like she was about to laugh so hard she was going to break a rib, "um being married to her has worked pretty well in the past?"

The student turned toward Alex and then back to Piper. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize, it's just of the routine things we have to cover at this point. I thought she was a friend or another family member or something."

"It's ok, don't worry about it, but I think I'm covered in that department."

The medical student thanked her for her time and walked out quickly.

Piper pushed her hip toward Alex, "stop it Alex," she stifled her laughter as Alex continued to desperately suppress her own hysterics.

The midwife returned with the student.

"Hello ladies." She came in with a much more casual tone. "You both look very happy today, everything going well?" They both just nodded, the medical student averted his eyes.

"Piper I'm just looking in your chart, you called last night about some contraction pain?"

"Yeah I guess it ended up being Braxton Hicks contractions because they went away after a while."

"She normally drinks water all throughout the day but she had a really busy day and didn't break to drink for almost the entire day."

"Yeah dehydration is extremely common for anyone but you're even more susceptible to it while you're pregnant, you should have time allotted for breaks. Do you need a letter for work emphasizing that?"

"I'm… I'm self employed," Piper responded embarrassingly. "I just need to be better about it."

"Eight glasses minimum. Any pain with urination or feeling like you have to go more often than normal?"

"Nope, same ole."

"Ha, well that's good. Same ole questions from me as well, baby's moving well, no leaking fluid or bleeding?"

"Baby dances, and nothing," she shook her head.

"Alright well Dr. Haque said he talked to you about getting a urine sample to check for any possibility of a urinary tract infection, though it's unlikely, we'd just like to rule it out. Is that alright?"

"Yes, it's fine, whatever you think is best."

"Okay, and I'd like to do a speculum exam and just look at your cervix and make sure it still looks closed and that those contractions didn't cause it to start opening just yet, ok?"

"Oh I hate that thing," she said as she eyed the metal instrument. The midwife handed her a paper drape.

"I know, no one likes it, but I'll be quick. Just undress from the waist down."

"Michelle, Dr. Haque had also mentioned," Alex looked at him teasingly, his face reddening instantly, "about pregnancy spacing, as far as safety or risks about the space between two different pregnancies."

Piper turned her head toward Alex as she sat down on the table, and pulled the paper drape across her legs.

"Yes there are increased risks of problems when pregnancies occur too close together, like the placenta being in a bad spot or detaching too early, babies being born too soon, or growing too small, things like that." Alex nodded along absorbing all of the information

Pipers eyes widened as she continued to stare down Alex.

"Were you two planning on another one soon after this baby?"

Piper replied immediately, "well if we were I wasn't aware!"

"I was just asking," Alex raised her arms as if she was under arrest.

The midwife helped Piper raise her shirt and felt around to figure out the baby's position. Her eyes furrowed slightly.

"Piper, where do you feel the baby move?"

"Everywhere, the baby literally moves all day, everywhere." As she said it and the midwife palpated deeper, she felt the baby move under her hands.

"An active baby just means it's healthy," she said with a smile. "Do you feel it more in one spot over others or not really?"

Piper thought about it for a moment, before reaching her hand over the lower part of her abdomen in the center and a little bit toward her left.

"Here?" The midwife had a wide grip near her pubic bone and another grip by her ribs, but she squeezed her lower hand more firmly.

"Mmm, hmmm."

"Do you know why?"

"No, is everything ok?"

"Yes, your baby's in a breech position right now. Most baby's will turn in time for delivery but there are some exercises and tricks I can give you more information about that you can do it at home. When I see you next time in two weeks, I'll check the position again and see if it worked."

"Alright. So I shouldn't worry about anything?"

"Really most babies turn in an optimal position. I wouldn't worry."

"But what if…,"

"you always worry about the what if. If the baby doesn't turn, we can try to move it manually from the outside with our hands but not for another few weeks. And ultimately if that doesn't work, we would recommend cesarean delivery. But let's not get caught up in that now, I want you to be persistent about those exercises, trust in your body and trust your baby alright?"

"Okay okay."

The midwife inserted the speculum and reassured her that her cervix appeared closed and gave her precautions as to why she should go to the hospital earlier than their next scheduled visit. As Piper dressed, Alex was handed the information sheets on breech presentation and methods to move them into a head down position.

They arrived home, both feeling pretty tired from a relatively restless night. "Do you want dinner first or you want to try one of these things," Alex asked her flipping through the pages.

"I can try something in there, let me just change at least. She slipped on a t shirt and loose shorts from the night before.

She heard screeching metal and followed the sound in the living room.

"Are you going to iron?," she asked the brunette looking at the ironing board propped in the living room. Alex tilted it so one end was on the couch and the other on the floor. She tossed a pillow toward the lower end. "You're supposed to lay on it."

"What? Seriously? How?"

"With your feet toward the couch and your head toward the floor."

"Oh lord, alright well don't go anywhere incase I need your help going back to right side up." Alex pushed her knees into the floor end of the board as Piper straddled it and laid back very slowly.

"I used to kick ass at yoga, now I feel like I'm going to fall off the side."

"I won't let you fall, I'm right here. It's pretty sturdy."

Alex moved another couch pillow on the floor and laid on her stomach, putting her head next to Piper. She flipped through the other pages.

"Is it bad that I'm kind of annoyed and jealous that you're able to lay down like that?"

"Sorry babe, I know you're not comfortable."

Piper raised her arms over her head allowing more space for her diaphragm and placed her interlocked fingers behind her head.

"It says if you can do this for 15 minutes, 2 or 3 times a day that it can help. It also says you can use music or an ice pack to encourage the baby change positions. Wanna try?"

"Sure, why not."

Alex gets onto her hands and knees before going over to her phone to pull up some music. They listen to a few songs, when Van Halen's "Jump" comes on.

"Oh this kid doesn't need any encouragement to jump, turn Mookie, turn."

"You know I was named after their drummer," Alex tells Piper.

"Whose? Van Halen? You never told me that."

"Yeah when my mom was following my dad's band around, his band would open for Van Halen, well they used to be called Mammoth. My mom said the drummer always treated her well, and when my dad left, she wanted to name me after someone who made her smile."

"That's nice. My mom was obsessed with Mozart's The Magic Flute when she was carrying me-flute, piper." She shrugged her shoulders. "Have you thought about any names for Mookie? I mean we could always just stick with Mookie, I'm kind of a fan of it now, ha."

"I think Mookie has enough on it's plate, right now, with it's plan to come into the world ass backwards and all. Let's not add to it."

Piper laughed out loud. "Ok so no names yet, I like the idea of naming the baby after something or someone versus just the name for the way it sounds. Are you supposed to be aiming this in a certain direction or something?" the blonde asked pointing to the phone.

"Yeah whatever direction you want the baby to move in, so…" she moves the phone down by Piper's crotch.

"C'mon Mookie this way." She holds the phone playing music right near Pipers pubic bone and continues to talk to their baby. After a few minutes, she instinctively behinds stroking Pipers inner thigh, moving higher and higher.

"No way, I've already been assaulted once today, and I feel all gassy."

"Wow that's really hot Pipes, thanks."

She leans on her stomach once again, resting her wrist holding her phone against Pipers lower abdomen. She catches Piper smiling the sweetest smile at her, her head tilted to the side, still propped on the ironing board. She holds her pointer finger up, leans back and takes a picture.


	8. Chapter 8

Thanks to lookuptothesky39 for the avid reading and enthusiasm, maddie001 and all the "guest" comments for loving the story and to 8isgreat08 for the continued thoughtful commentary.

This chapter was not intended to go this route, not sure how I feel about it.

* * *

8

"Helloooo?" Alex called out a bit confused to see the lights on in the living room down the hall, background noise from the television set but no Piper….

"I'm in here," Piper called out from the living room.

The tall brunette glided down the pumpkin colored hallway adorned with dozens of photos from their past travels. Her footsteps became louder as her footing transitioned off of the runner from the hall into the entryway.

"Are you ok?," she called out, as she slipped the strap of her cross body backpack over her head and placed it in the basket under the mail table in the entryway.

"Yep, just trying to work my magic."

She began to walk towards the living room but stopped herself mid-step,

"shoes!," the blonde called out from the living room..

She retreated back towards the table and leaned her back against the wall, lifted her leg and unzipped her boot, followed by the other. She placed the boots beside their coat-rack, unbuttoned her jacket and unlooped her scarf from around her neck and hung them both on the rack. She walked hurriedly towards the voice, her socked feet providing no traction she almost slipped on the polished hardwood floor, but she regained her balance, she didn't remember it being so slippery.

She turned the corner of the living room and eyed an empty couch. Her eyes darted quickly when she found Piper on the floor on her elbows and knees, a pillow under her cheek, her ass in the air.

"Hey," she mumbled from the ground.

Alex inhaled slowly and brought a hand to her mouth, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Are my plans of seduction working?," she laughs, "I'm innocently trying to get Mookie to turn, see?" she hands the papers to Alex and points to the dog-eared page with the "knee chest" illustration. "I crawled around all day scrubbing the floors and…"

"Yeah I almost busted my ass in the hall, thanks for the heads up!"

"You're extremely welcome for the clean floor, ungrateful,… and I'm supposed to stay like this for half an hour, I still have about 8 minutes."

"Yeah well if you stay in that position much longer, mmm," she drops down to her knees, "I'm about to do some not so innocent things to you."

"Oh my God Alex, are you serious?"

She stares voraciously at Piper, "yes."

"Al…I know that look. What are you thinking about?"

She kneels behind her and presses her hips towards Pipers bottom. "You were in this position that incredible night we did X on the beach in Southeast Asia."

"That was a long time ago."

"You were irresistible then and you're irresistible now," she raises her eyebrows and lets them fall quickly.

"I still have 7 minutes." Alex thrusts her hips against the back of Pipers thighs teasing.

"You can stay right where you are, no need to move that perfect little ass," she squeezes both of her cheeks.

"My ass is not little Alex," she replied sounding slightly self-conscious and coming up onto her palms.

Alex pushed her head back down onto the pillow, "your body is gorgeous," she says as she leans over Pipers back and rubs her hands over the blonde's hips, "I love every inch of you," her hands continue along her torso and over her breasts, squeezing them firmly.

Piper inhales sharply at the touch. "It's hard to feel desirable when your body changes this rapidly." She tries to ignore the hands that tickle her sensitive places.

"Um, if I haven't made it clear how much I want you, please let me show you how sorry I am."

She traced her hands up Pipers legs and found the waistband to her leggings. She pulled them and her panties down to her knees encouraging Piper to lift each knee as she pulled them down past her feet. She laid her chest along Pipers back and returned her hands to the space on Piper's upper thighs right under her belly."

"Al," she whined, she squeezed her muscles together.

"Hey, it's just me, babe." She rubbed her skin firmly while she inhaled the scent of Pipers shampoo. She was still tense. "Let go," she whispered.

"Al," she whined again but relented at the seductive touch, "okay, but go slow.I've been in this position all day," she says arching her back like a cat.

"Then lie down, here," she helped Piper re-adjust to lie on her side. She lay in front of her mirroring her position and just stroked her skin. She kisses her deeply but slowly.

"Want a massage? Though I'm not promising where these hands will end up."

"Mmm, yes please."

She helps Piper lift her tunic over her head and discards it to the side. Piper leans up onto her elbow and Alex unhooks her bra and snakes it through her arm.

She gently massages the blonde from head to toe until she could hear her breathing turn into a mere hum. She grabbed a couch pillow and placed it between the blonde's knees. She stroked her fingers between her folds, her libido increasing as her touch was met with wetness.

Piper grunted in her throat, as Alex stroked her back and forth coating her fingers before slipping them inside. She barely moved her fingers as Piper pushed back into the curve of Alex's lap. Piper rocked her body against the smooth fingers as she felt Alex's breath against her back.

"Mmmm, I love the way you move baby, ride me." Piper continued to roll her hips and Alex moved with her. They rocked in unison and continued to make love on the blanket on their floor until they were both satisfied.

"I love you Pipes," she said as she leaned up to kiss her along her jaw and then again on her mouth. "And I love you Mookie," she kissed Piper's belly and rested her cheek there for a moment.

Piper turned around to face Alex, her wife's hand lingering to feel the baby moving. It took many encounters to get comfortable with the inconspicuous tiny participant, that was now always between them but she tried not to give it much thought anymore. She lifted her own hand and stroked her wife's hair back behind her ear and caressed her head. "Al? The other day when you were asking about pregnancy spacing, what made you ask?"

Alex averted her eyes and swallowed hard. She found Pipers eyes and shrugged her shoulders. "I just want to know what our options are."

"I don't know that I want two. Were you thinking that you wanted another one?"

"No idea Piper, really. Let me see how I can handle the one and we can revisit it later on."

Piper nodded, "Oh speaking of taking on more than we can handle, Polly and Pete have a wedding in a few weeks and kids aren't invited, she asked if we wanted to watch Finn for them."

"Yeah of course, why would that be too much?," asking as if this was no big deal.

"Well it's out of town, so it would be overnight," she said as she straightened Alex's glasses that were sliding off of her nose.

"Got it, but you'll be there right?"

"Yeah of course. But I might conveniently be busy for a few hours just to see what you do with him on your own."

Alex purses her lips and starts to bite the inside of her bottom lip, she nods slowly.

Piper presses her forehead against her wife, "I wouldn't do that to you. I'll be there the whole time. You'd be fine though, really."

Alex tilted her head back slightly, relieved. She loved Finn dearly and he was such a good boy, but the thought of being alone with him, to take care of him overnight and return him to Polly in one piece was somewhat daunting. She was really glad Piper was kidding.

"Alright lemme give her a call and let her know so she can send out the RSVP."

"K, hey can I talk to her afterwards. Some people at work gave me verbal RSVP's for our shower, I just want to make sure she writes them down."

"Like who?"

"Oh you know just some of the guys, they're excited for us. You don't think it's going to be overly girly do you?"

"Well seeing as this is a Nicky-Polly collaboration, I decided to throw any preconceived notions out the door."

After speaking to Polly about their upcoming shower and confirming they'd be happy to watch Finn, she was told that she was way ahead of them regarding the shower. Alex took the phone and walked a few feet away when Piper went to get up, pulled on her tunic and followed her into the kitchen. Alex's eyes met her gaze and she made a shooing motion with her hand. Piper didn't pester her as she knew the two were up to something, she'd never get Alex to spill the beans. She looked through some cabinets for something to snack on when Alex got off the phone,

"What are you looking for?"

"I don't know… something, you know what I just had a craving for? I don't even know the name of it."

Alex bit her lip, curious. "Hmm?"

"That dip, it was kind of like Nutella, that you brought to the room for me when we were in Brussels. Remember I didn't eat for like two days, because I was convinced I was going to get caught while we stayed in that hotel room. You got scared that I was going to faint and went out into the street in the middle of the night looking for something that had sugar. It was so good, I dipped pretzels from the vending machine into that stuff and finished the whole jar. You went out and got me two more."

Alex tightened her lips into a thin line, she remembered it clearly. She _was_ thoroughly convinced Piper was going to pass out from anxiety or turn herself in out of fear that she would get caught and the punishment would be far more severe. She was so relieved to see her eat something she ran back down immediately to get her more.

"Spekuloos."

"Yes! Spekuloos, mmmm. Do you think you could find it?"

Alex stared at her feet and rubbed her hand over her lips.

"Al?"

She shook her head from side to side, "I should've never let you do that run."

"What? Al, it was forever ago, and I wanted to. Who knows where we would be if events were changed? It's in the past. I'm not getting into this with you, we've been through it a million times." She rested a hand over her abdomen and stoked it gently, "do you think you could find the Spekuloos?"

"Yeah…yeah, I'll find it."

She walked somberly toward the door, re-dressed in winter garb and softly closed the heavy wood behind her. She walked aimlessly block after block with heavy steps, filled with shame and regret. She had hit the rewind button on the disc of their past so many times trying to recall what gave her the confidence to take advantage of the girl who was so different from every other girl she'd known. She'd replayed the disc the moment the young blonde told her she couldn't be with her anymore, when she still had the drive to leave her after she'd learnt of her mother's passing, when she saw her in the cafeteria at Litchfield years later, and so many other times when she'd shown her kindness and patience when she didn't feel worthy.

Despite Piper's incessant insistence that she fully forgave her, the brunette always felt like a reprehensible black light emitted from deep within her, forever tarnished, inerasable.

She'd tried so hard to condone her wrongdoing, convincing herself that the girl was well informed and fully in control of her own actions but after years at her attempt of justification, her conscience that was buried deep within, grew upward and she knew she was wrong. The halves of her body battled hour after hour, day after day, year after year until the dark-side gained the upper hand and she no longer found pleasure in anything. She'd turned to heroin for an instantaneous, short-lived reprieve, only to restart the battle hours later; but it had served it's purpose in the moment, an escape from the swirling darkness, the loneliness associated with the abandonment from the one person who really taught her what it meant to be alive.

She took advantage of the girl's need to explore what the world had to over, of the girls love, and her loyalty. Til this day, entire months would go by without a thought about the darker times of their relationship, but sometimes, even when recalling a more pleasant moment of their lives while they traveled, a stream of the dark smoke filtered into the memory and she just couldn't take it.

The beats of Britney's "Work Bitch" mashed with LMFAO's "Shot's" escaping from the door of the bar broke her out of her trance. The clinking of the glasses at the bar mixed with the smell of cigarettes in the frigid night air welcomed her.

"Can I bum one of those?" she asked a young guy leaning up against the red painted bricks of the bar. She held the cigarette between her lips, and cupped the lighter to protect the flame as she inhaled deeply. She slowly inhaled the nicotine until she was down to a stub before she stepped inside, unwrapped the scarf from around her neck and took a seat at the bar.

"Double Soco neat."

The bartender placed the drink in front of her "$10.00 sweetheart"; she nursed it slowly and rested her elbows on the bar. She cracked her knuckles and leaned her chin onto her fist. She slipped a hand into the pocket of her coat and pulled out her wallet. She unsnapped the metal and fished through the money compartment and pulled out the contents. Among the bills, was an old wrinkled photo of Piper sitting by a window looking over her shoulder. Alex had surprised her in that moment, so she wasn't smiling, and it wasn't staged. It was one of her favorites. She thumbed the photo and then searched through her wallet for her sonogram photo of her baby. Air pushed through her teeth as her eyes darted back and forth at the images, and she ran her hands through her hair. Her hands shook as she placed the money on the sticky wooden table. She exited the bar, slipped her hands into her pockets and started walking quickly down the sidewalk. The hot tears in her eyes met the cold air causing an unpleasant burn. She continuously removed her right hand from her pocket to wipe her nose, alternating between sniffing back the contents that tried to run from her nostrils. She pushed the door open to Trader Joe's, grabbed a basket and walked up and down the aisles until she found the cookie butter. She thoughtlessly placed half a dozen jars into the basket, and walked up to the counter to pay. The cashier peered at her cautiously, she appeared to have a mental disorder, appearing distressed and disheveled, but she paid and bolted out the door. She walked the mile back to their apartment regaining more composure with each block that she left behind her.

She gathers her keys and is about to unlock the door when she hears music. She presses her ear to the crack in the door and listens, she can hear her singing. She can't quite make out the tune from behind the door but she hears Piper's voice intertwined with the artist. She unlocks the door, undresses down to her shirt, jeans and socks and walks, carefully this time, over the hardwood to find Piper with her eyes closed, slouching on the couch singing her heart out to"At the Ballet" from one of her favorite shows, A Chorus Line. Piper sings when she's happy, when she needs to relieve stress, to put others in a good mood. Her sound is always melodic.

Alex melts to her knees beside her, "I adore you," she says startling the blonde. She kisses down the length of her arm, "and no matter what you say, a part of me will always feel like I don't deserve you." Piper could smell the liquor and cigarettes on her mouth, but the anguish on her face killed her. "I'm so sorry," the brunette choked out. Piper brushed her fingers through the frostbitten hat hair that lay beside her arm. She didn't need to clarify, she'd heard the apology many times before; the brunette was still occasionally ruthless just now toward herself.

"Your voice is beautiful, I feel so fortunate to catch it from time to time. I wish I could sing like that to you and make you feel the same way. Our baby will be so lucky to be sung to sleep each night."

She curls her arm around the brunette and pulls her close. "Baby's don't judge Alex," she continues to stroke her fingers through the dark strands, "and I try not to either. Our love is too strong to keep a record of all our faults. You sing whatever is on your mind, it doesn't have to rhyme or make sense, we'll both hear it." She reaches for the latest book they'd been reading, "or you can always read. Your tone is true, it soothes me and makes my heart happy. It always has, it always will."

Alex reaches into the bag, and opens a jar of the Spekuloos and hands it to Piper. She begins reading, her voice begins to calm. They both have their relapse of times they feel should be unforgiven but find solace in each other's voice, they cling to each other in a tight grip, each time moving further away from a misunderstood past.


	9. Chapter 9

Edited! Slow day, guess the weather kept people home-(thank you frigid temps!)

Thank you for the continued amazing support. Thank you to whoever gave me a shout out on bereaving's blog/tumbler (I don't know the difference. I'm a girl(woman, whatever) by the way.)) Reviews/commentary are always appreciated and motivational. You guys are the best. lookuptothesky39, really excited that you're interested in reading my other story. That one is fluffy as well but different.

* * *

9

"Can you please not fight me on this? What is the big freaking deal Piper?," the tall brunette questioned, pacing back and forth throughout the living room.

"It's just not necessary, when I can walk a few blocks and take the subway." Piper was resting on the couch with one leg bent underneath her.

"I'd just really you rather not. I have no problem leaving early to drop you off and pick you up or you can take the car yourself."

"Alex it's a 20 minute commute, you're being ridiculous."

"_You're_ being ridiculous! Look, if you want to endanger yourself and walk through the subway at night by yourself, go, do, be ridiculous, but that's my cargo too and I'd feel better if you were in the car."

The fire in the brunette could drive her crazy but she also secretly loved how protective she was. She fought the urge to smile and bit her lip hard to look frustrated. She decided to continue the persiflage.

"Endanger myself? Alex I get out at 6pm every day."

"It's dark out."

"I'll bring a flashlight."

"And it's getting cold and icy."

"I'll wear a hat."

Alex threw her arms up and walked away. Piper scrunched her face, and laughed silently. She heard the opening and closing of drawers and Alex's heavy, frustrated steps down the hall.

It took two attempts to get off the couch, but she managed, and went to look for her. She found her drawing pencil marks on the walls, bent on one knee, taking measurements in the nursery that was still coming together.

"Hey, you don't have to worry about me so much is all."

"I'm not worried, why don't you go stick some firecrackers up your ass and light them?, see if I care."

The blonde rubbed her hands up and down Alex's arms, "c'mon babe, what happened to my bad ass, thrill seeking, spur of the moment, hot blooded Alex?"

The brunette whipped her head over her shoulder, "she got married and decided to have babies with you." She turned her head back over her shoulder and stuck her pencil behind her ear. "And fuck off, I'm still spontaneous."

"You are." She dragged her nails through the dark hair and styled it, then let it loose and repeated the motions. "I love that we still pop into the Angelika to catch indie flicks at the last minute when we have work the next day, or explore new cake shops to sample desserts when we just had intentions of going for a walk."

"My ideas of spontaneity are just more obscure now."

"Hey you don't have to try to justify yourself. My life is by no means boring. We can't just get up and go around the world like we used to, we grew up, we have different priorities." She leaned over Alex, her long blonde hair masking over the brunettes face and she teased her lip with her finger. "But believe me you still keep me on my toes."

She moved Pipers hand back to her hair, she loved to feel her caress, Piper relented and continued to play with the straight dark locks.

"I'll tell you what, let me still get myself to work in the morning and you can pick me up every day. Whenever the weather is bad you can drop me off and pick me up alright?"

"Yeah, whatever Ms. Independent."

* * *

"Head down! Nice work, did you feel it when the baby turned?"

"Yeah, I think it was sideways for a full day. I felt all the kicks on this side here, and there was a big bump here and I felt like I had all this space, like I could breathe again, but then when I woke up the bump was gone and now I'm pretty sure there is a foot under my rib."

She palpates the fetal back, and traces her hands up until she feels small parts, "Yep, definitely a foot right there. Your body and your baby know what they're doing. Once they're head down, they usually stay down since the head is the heaviest part."

Alex sits a few feet away and is eye level with the table.

She palpates more, "and this kiddo feels to be about 4, 4 and half pounds, which is great, and very active as usual."

Alex can see Mookie moving under Pipers skin, showing off. "All day and all night, I feel like she doesn't get a break", she laughs.

"It's a small price to pay, as long as this kid is in a good position, it can do whatever it wants."

She scans over her chart, "alright and your weight, blood pressure, urine everything looks great today." She hands them a flyer, "here's the information for childbirth education classes. It's a few hours split into 2 different classes, I recommend you both go because they'll cover techniques to work through labor and a lot of it are things partners can do to ease the pain. They cover true versus false labor, when's a good time to head to the hospital, pain medication options, common interventions that you might need, baby care, breastfeeding; most people find it very helpful."

Alex lowered her lip and nervously smiled out the side of her mouth, "oh man," she brushed her hands over her cheeks and wrapped them around the back of her neck.

The midwife patted her knee, "you'll be fine, I'll see you girls in two weeks, same precautions as always…" she went through her usual words of wisdom and they headed out.

They got in their car and started driving, "getting closerrrrrr," Piper teased Alex who was visibly still uneasy.

"I think I need that class more than you do," she laughed nervously. "You're not nervous at all?"

"Yeah I am! But what goes in, has to come out right? People have been doing this for billions of years. Some women work until the day they deliver, walking through fields, squat down, have their kid and continue working, I can do it."

"Okay, Laura Ingalls Wilder."

Piper shoved her shoulder, "thanks for the vote of confidence," she paused and looked out the window, "but like she said I just have to trust my body."

"I'm just giving you a hard time, you're gonna do great. I'm glad Mookie is in a good position, it's really cool that she can figure that out with her hands." Alex truly believed what she said about Piper doing well, but continued to doubt how she'd manage to keep herself together for her.

They parked their car on the street after circling for 20 minutes. They hit their produce stand and bought some ingredients to make eggplant parmigiana and after Alex's insistence, a batch of homemade marinara.

"My hero," the blonde retorted sarcastically when Alex started walking out of the market holding all of the grocery bags. She set the bags down before she exits, pulled out an eggplant and handed it to Piper, "here" and proceeded to re-lift all the bags and continued walking.

They got upstairs and got to work on cooking. "So what exactly do I do here?," Piper asked Alex waving her hands over the ingredients that were spread out over the counter.

"Just cut all the tomatoes in half, put them on the baking sheet and stick it in the oven."

Piper followed her instructions and 20 minutes later removed them, let them cool and she put them in a large bowl. "Now just squish them up."

She grabbed a long wooden spoon. "Not with that."

"With what then?"

"Your hands, like this…," she stood behind Piper and slipped her hands over the blonde and immersed them into the tomatoes, and squished them between their hands.

"This is kind of gross, and kind of relaxing."

She quit squeezing after the first ten tomatoes resembled salsa and sat at the kitchen bar, and watched Alex work her way around the kitchen.

"Why'd you want to make this for tomorrow?"

"Because I know you like it, and I wanted you to have it for the shower."

"It's your shower too babe, I want you to relax and have a good time, not worry about feeding people." Alex couldn't help but think of her mother; how many times had she told her mother to relax and let other people handle catering. "Polly and Nicky have it under control, I'm sure there'll be plenty of food."

"It's no trouble really," she holds a fork out towards Piper with all the ingredients, before she starts layering, "for my love," she winks and flashes her a cheesy smile and feeds Piper a forkful.

"Mmmm'sooo good, I had no idea how much work went into this every time you made it."

"Food is love my dear. It tastes the best when the entire dish is made from scratch. Let me finish up in here."

Piper went through their closet and picked out her clothes for the next day. She was excited but also nervous to have their family and friends from different walks of life in the same room, the same feeling she had when she planned their wedding reception.

Piper relaxed on the couch and flipped through some channels while Alex finished up. She groggily got down on the floor and rested her head near Piper's.

"Al, come up here don't sit on the floor."

"There's no room, you look so comfortable, it's fine."

"I'll make room, come." She pushed herself back, and Alex slipped a pillow behind her shoulder blades. The brunette squished into the space between the couch and Piper and laid on her side, she slid her bent knees underneath Piper's bent legs and rested her head on her chest. She dazedly caressed the brunette beneath her ear and along her neck, while she studied her wife's delicate eyelashes, the lines on her face, the softness of her cheeks, the perfection of her lips.

"How could you ever wonder if I know how much you love me?" she whispered.

"Hmmm?," Alex sleepily breathed out.

"Every day," she kissed the brunette on her temple and thought to herself, "you show me every day."

* * *

Piper woke up the next morning on the couch, the same couch she'd fallen asleep and woken up on during different phases of her life over the last 15 years, it was well broken in, everyone who hung out at their place always said they could fall asleep on that couch. She stretched out and let her legs come over to the side. She felt Alex's body beneath her feet. She laid back down, hung her head off the side of the couch, and rubbed the brunette on the tip of her nose.

"Good morning Starshine," she sang softly, "the earth says hello."

"Too early for show tunes Piper," she grumbled.

"Gliddy glub gloopy, nibby nabby noopy, la la la lo lo."

"You'd fit right into that cast of flower children," she said she stretched her long limbs like a feline.

"C'mon baby get up."

Alex grumpily wrinkled her eyebrows and tilted her head far back, taking note of the cerulean blue sky. "What time is it?"

"A little after 8, c'mon it's not that…" she felt Piper stroke her breasts rolling her nipple back and forth, "hard."

"Mmm, you're such a dragoon."

"It's shoooooower day."

"Shit," she shot up, and put her glasses on her face, "_you_ gotta get up, c'mon," she scurried up and out of the room, leaving Piper frozen in place.

"C'mon Pipes, Polly is going to be here any minute," she yelled from another room.

"What? Why is Polly coming here?"

"Because she's going with you to a spa. I booked sessions for you, they'll take care of you all morning."

"Al seriously? I'm not even dressed!"

"You don't have to, just bring your clothes. They'll do your hair, a body scrub, massage, your nails, you just have to sit there, you don't have to do anything."

Piper looked at her with puppy eyes, "why are you so good to me?"

"Because you're my Pipes." She leant over her on the couch and kissed her lovingly. "Really, up." She helped Piper pack a small bag with her shoes and makeup for later. Piper stood in front of their bureau, and finger brushed her hair before tying it up.

"Maybe they can take off a few inches."

"Don't cut your hair."

"What? Why not? The ends are all dead."

"You cant cut it, it's bad luck," she said seriously.

"Alex, no it's not. It's dangerous to dye it in the early part of pregnancy, but you can cut it, I'm sure of it."

She shook her head from side to side, "I remember hearing it in Istanbul, if you cut it, you could shorten the life of your baby."

"Oh, that's only slightly morbid! But I'm sure it's just an old wives tale, Alex."

She looked back at the blonde with pleading eyes. Polly called and said she was downstairs.

Piper shook her head and rolled her eyes, "I'll see you later. Wait, are you meeting me at Polly's or what?"

"Yeah i'll meet you there, have a good time."

Alex called Nicky who confirmed she was already running around with Polly's list picking up decorations, cupcakes, and various other things they needed. She hung up and called a friend from work.

Piper called out, "hellooo," as she walked into Polly's feeling refreshed.

"Pippy! Look what Ayix gave me!," he ran over holding a little cupcake.

"Oh did she, you better hurry up and eat that before your mom walks in, go!," he scampered off behind the swinging door of the kitchen.

Alex came out wearing a light purple fitted cocktail length chiffon dress, she tucked her hair behind her ear. Piper still had her coat on, and her scarf wrapped around her neck. Alex hurriedly walked over to her, and reached up for her scarf. Piper put both of her hands around her wrists, "um, hello you look beautiful mama, are you kidding me with this dress?"

Alex kissed her hello, and Piper felt her hands move behind her head, but then felt her quickly unwrap the scarf. Piper dropped her arms to her side, submissively as Alex pulled the collar of her coat away from her neck to look at the blonde tresses trapped underneath.

"Are you done?," Piper asked as she undid her coat and removed it from her shoulders releasing her naturally beachy curls that were the exact same length.

Alex tugged gently at the base of her hair, "I thought you said it was just a superstition?" Alex looked her up and down, admiring her in her flowy full length teal colored dress.

"It is, but I'm not going to be the person who challenges it. What?"

"You just look really pretty."

Alex held the ends of hair that fell down Piper's chest and moved her hands like a double dutch rope.

"Stop, you're going to embarrass me," she brushed the brunettes hands away from her hair. "Come, Polly's gonna blow a vein if she knows Finn had a cupcake before lunch." She pulled her along the imaginary trail that Finn left behind, "let's go make sure the evidence is off his face before he blows your cover."

They stepped into the kitchen and Piper was taken aback by the overwhelming amount of food and aromas. Pete was wiping off Finn's hands and face, when the boy excitedly claimed Pipers hand and dragged her out towards the living room and den to show her the set up.

Multicolored balloons, fresh flowers and decorations were strewn throughout the room. There was a table set up for food, desserts and plates, another for presents which already had two, what looked like a craft table, a table with a decorative tree, and another with essentials needed for what looked like some interesting games.

Piper turned towards Alex, "this looks awesome."

"It's all Nicky and Polly, I just got here."

Nicky came up from the basement carrying a round galvanized bin, "hey Chapman you blinked, Vause wins." Alex chuckled at her friend.

"Can you help me with this? I have to fill it with water."

"Water?"

"Hey, the hell do I know? I just follow orders."

Alex went to help Nicky with the bucket while Piper helped Polly with some last minute touches as guests started arriving.

Some friends from college and two of Alex's cousins were the first to arrive followed by Piper's parents and Cal.

"Cal you came?," she kissed him hello. "Yeah I wouldn't miss a shower for Alex's baby." She smiled widely.

"Hey Cal," Alex came over and hugged him around his gift. "This is the official gift," he said handing Alex a big box, "and this is to open while our parents aren't standing 2 feet away from us," he handed Piper a small squishy gift.

"Okay, should I go put this in the back?" Piper asked warily. "It's just a gag gift, it's funny, yeah go put it in the back."

More and more people streamed in, mutual friends, Alex's colleagues from work, some friends from Litchfield; it was an eclectic group.

"Hey you clean up nice!," one of Alex's colleagues said to her as they stood around mingling and introducing their friends and family to one another.

Polly took the reins and dove right into the games; she handed everyone a little clothespin and told them to attach it to their clothes, if someone heard you say "baby," they got to take it away from you and whoever had the most at the end would win.

They played baby food sampling games, broke into pairs and raced to see who could feed their blind folded partner a whole jar, timed Alex and Piper to see who could pack a diaper bag properly in 30 seconds and others.

Nicky opened a bunch of rubber nipples and started plunking them in the water bin, and Polly called the guys up to see who could bob for the most nipples. After a less then thrilling attempt, Nicky called over the girls and said, "let's show the guys how it's done."

Alex looked over at Piper's parents who just looked slightly embarrassed but laughed along, it could've been worse, it _was_ Nicky after all.

People scattered around the room to have more food and chatted while Polly encouraged people to grab a plain white onesie and asked them to decorate near the craft table they'd set up. People got really into decorating and Nicky had fun holding each one up for display as she read her favorites out loud, "Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner, Poop-There it is, on Wednesday's we Wear Pink, I love my Mommies." Everyone awed at the last one and they gathered around to open presents. Polly passed around little cards for people to write well wishes, parenting advice or childhood memories that they were fond of that they'd want to pass on to the moms to be. She hung their wishes and words of advice onto the tree displayed in the corner.

By the end of the shower they were exhausted but thanked everyone profusely for coming to celebrate in their excitement. Piper went to the back to get Cal's gift as their parents went outside to warm up the car, as he waited with his coat on, she brought it out and sat near Alex to open it. She pealed back the paper and held up a bright orange onesie that said, "I just did 9 months on the inside."

"Love you guys!," he shouted and he hurried toward the door as Alex rolled on the couch cackling. The girls loaded up their car with as much as they could, promising to come back the next day for the rest of their gifts, everyone had been so generous. They made their way home and up to their apartment after unloading everything from the elevator, they closed the door behind them and looked at the cluttered entryway filled with baby stuff.

"Would you look at all this? It's overwhelming but I feel so blessed Al."

She took her hand, "come, there's one more thing." She pulled her down their hallway and opened the door to the nursery and turned on the light.

Piper brought her hands to her mouth, she was so surprised, she felt her body heat start to rise and lost control of the muscles in her face and cried tears of happiness.

"This is beautiful, when did you do this?"

In the corner of their baby's room was a new wooden tree built into the wall, with a small library of children's books nestled on the branches. A gliding rocking chair rested below the tree with a canopy of warm colored fabric.

"It's a book nook, I built it at work. The guys helped me put it in this morning when you were out with Polly."

Piper stepped closer to eye the reading material, "there's so many great books here."

"I looked up the 100 best children's books, they're all there. There's so many that I haven't read myself."

"I love it, it's perfect, think of all the 'Once upon a time's!'"


	10. Chapter 10

Lookuptothesky39, I spoil you?! Your comments rock! Sorry to not have had something up this morning but this chapter didn't exist then. Thank you for all of the comments for my other story as well, glad you're liking it.

I feel so spoiled at the amount of comments I received in 1 day from everyone. Thank you all so so much…

Cara and Sammy: glad you like my focus, I'm surrounded by this everyday so this is my expertise. This next chapter is my attempt at writing from Finn's perspective (at points), so if I did continue with vignettes after Mookie is here, it would probably be similar. Let me know what you guys thought. Someone wrote on notaneggplant's blog/tumbler and while I'd also be up for collaborating, I hardly think I'm worthy. Her story is amazing (mucho props to you notaneggplant/bereaving.)

Thank you to Sid, Pipex, and multiple "guests" for your enthusiasm. My extremely awkward schedule makes this very difficult to get chapters out as quickly as I'd like, thank you for your patience with this story and my other one.

8isgreat08 thank you for your continued personal commentary, it's very appreciated.

Guest: no I do not have a tumblr, I literally didn't know what a tumblr was until OITNB. I found theinevitablepipex's tumblr/blog by accident (VERY HAPPY ACCIDENT). I saw her suggested fics, and then happily stumbled upon the fanfiction website as well, (I guess I live under a rock). I didn't get the idea from the site; I got the idea when I watched the scene where Alex said to Piper "if you want to have babies, and remodel your bathroom, then please go do nest." ::collapse:: Though in that scene, they'd both be a hot mess as mothers, my heart kind of broke for that to not be a reality. I, like everyone else on this ridonkulous fandom, want them both to end up together. Thanks for thinking I capture their personalities well, it's really hard and I've never done anything like this before.

* * *

10

The chairs were set up in a circle, a television stand stood lone off to the side, there were models of pelvises and babies, a table with cheese, crackers and fruit, and the sounds of voices in various octaves chattering amongst each other. The instructor encouraged everyone to take a seat and had each person or couple introduce themselves, tell how many weeks along they were, the gender of their child and what they were hoping to get out of the class.

They went around the circle, some women were married, partnered, single and came alone, or single and brought a friend or family member. Alex initially remembered feeling somewhat anxious, hoping to not be the token unique couple, all worries quickly subsided.

"Hi, my name's Piper, I'm 36 weeks, we don't know what we're having yet but they ensured us it was human, and I'm hoping to get some more information on how to get through labor as naturally as possible." She straightened her back and turned her head toward Alex.

The brunette exhaled, adjusted her glasses, and crossed one leg over the other. "I'm Alex, I'm with her," she pointed her thumb at Piper, "and I'm hoping someone wants to volunteer to be me when she goes into labor?" Piper smiled with her tongue in her cheek, "or I hope to learn some techniques to coach her through all of this."

The circle continued and they heard similar goals from all the participants.

"Alright so we're going to jump right into this, we're going to start and end each class watching a birth so you become familiar with the sights and sounds. Has anyone ever seen a delivery?" Some people raised their hands, most people didn't, some looked very excited, others looked terrified; Piper was among the former, Alex was among the latter.

"Is this lady serious?," Alex spoke through gritted teeth. "Pipes I'm already dreading being in the room for our kid, I have to watch other people do this four times?"

"It'll be good though, I don't want you passing out on me!"

The video played, the people in the film were clearly from the 70's with Charlie's Angel's flipped hairstyles and large glasses. As this lady started pushing, Alex was surprised at how quiet she was until the head in the video became visible and she started yelling. As the head came out, Piper looked at Alex out of the corner of her eye, the brunette had 2 fingers from each hand pressed against her jaw as her mouth dropped open and opened wider and wider. She pushed her neck back into her chair, she curled her lips and whispered "yowch."

Piper looked back at the screen, this person was stretched to an inhumane capacity, and the baby delivered soon after. She turned to Alex and mouthed, "fuck."

Alex didn't even blink.

The instructor turned the lights back on, the room was filled with nervous chatter, "how am I going to do this? I'm getting a c-section, I changed my mind, I can't do that." The instructor settled the group down, and let everyone voice their thoughts.

Alex looked around the room and listened to everyone freak out about everything under the sun, including rumors and myths they'd heard about from friends and family, things they'd encountered throughout their experience thus far and what things they were still finding challenging.

"This is kind of like N.A.," she whispered to Piper.

"Yeah it's like a support group. No matter how many times they reassure you what you're feeling is normal, it's kind of nice to hear other people say they've felt the same stuff."

The instructor reviewed contraction timing, signs of early labor, when to stay home versus when to go to the hospital. They spent a lot of time working through position changes and methods to relieve pain to try to stay home during early labor. They watched the second birth video and this one had more of a car wreck effect; they both watched through the whole video without looking away, regardless of the fact that it made them uneasy.

"That is no piece of pie, but we'll be okay," Alex said as they stood up and got their coats on.

"I just have to keep reminding myself that this is a normal process of life."

"Do you think you would want Polly to be there?"

"I don't know, I remember being told that she went to the hospital after the first contraction. I don't want to be in the hospital forever, I'd rather be home for most of it, I'd have to talk to her."

* * *

She talked to Polly but the conversation got derailed to them watching Finn that upcoming weekend. Finn wanted to go to Piper and Alex's apartment despite Polly explaining that all his toys and movies were in their house.

Polly: "You're positive Alex will be up to it? He's got a lot of energy Pipes."

Piper: "I'm putting you on speaker."

Polly: "Hey Al, yeah he's running around here like I gave him 30 packets of sugar, you guys sure you'll be up to taking him overnight?"

Alex: "We're ready Pol, we'll be cool."

Piper: "Yeah, and I need something to distract me from my never-ending countdown, I'm over the whole _miracle _of this experience. My feet look like sausages."

Polly continued chatting about something's that she thought might be good to know. Alex stood by their kitchen counter filling dixie cups with water and mini fossil replicas.

"What are those?" Piper mouthed to her looking over the little book about dinosaur facts.

"Fake fossils," she whispered, as she continued to plunk in the fossils, "I found it on St. Mark's the other night."

"Nerd," she whispered.

Piper: "Alex got him some dinosaur thing she'd thought he'd like."

Polly: "Sounds good. Alright guys, he's super wound up and excited I need to get him to bed. We'll see you around noon on Saturday."

* * *

Saturday morning rolled around, they sat on opposite ends of the couch. Alex massaged Pipers feet while Piper scrolled through some baby name websites, plugging names into a name genie.

"Ugh these are all awful. Serenity? Heaven? Destiny? Why would you do that to your child?"

"I think those border along child abuse." Alex squeezed her foot a little too rough.

"Ahh!," she pulled her foot back slightly, glancing at her toes.

"Shit, sorry."

"S'okay. Ew, my toes look so gross!"

"They don't, here, scoot over this way." Alex got up and returned with a bottle of polish and sat on the floor near the couch. Piper sat back and draped her legs over Alex's shoulders letting her paint her toenails.

"Alright continue, what other names catch your eye."

Piper put the phone down, "you haven't thought of anything?"

"Nothing that really sticks. I don't want to pick something stupid, the kid is going to be stuck with this name forever."

"I still like the idea of a name that's inspired by someone or something that's meant something to us."

She looked over her shoulder, "so are Taystee and Poussey _on_ the table?"

"HAHA, no!"

They rattled off dozens of names, nothing was right.

"All done." Alex pushed herself off the floor and placed the bottle on the table. She gave Piper a piece of paper and pen, "we're gonna get this done, write these down." She walked over to their bookshelf and browsed their books.

Ok we've got "Steinbeck, James Joyce, Gillian Flynn, Fitzgerald, Orwell, Emerson, Tolstoy, Faulkner, Jodi Picoult, Twain, Toni Morrison, Dan Brown, Homer," she laughed and made gangster arms,

"Homey…. no?"

Piper glared up at her and shook her head, "no."

She crouched down, "Alice Walker, Virginia Woolf, Rowling, the Bronte's, Harper Lee, Jane Austen."

Piper looked over the list and bit the tip of the pen,"those are all so much better. That freaking online name genie sucks." She glanced over their list again, "that's good for now, at least we have something to work with."

The bell on their intercom rang quickly 6 times, "and I think Finn is here."

Piper met Polly and Finn at the door.

"Hi Pippy," Finn said half hiding behind Polly.

Polly squatted down next to him, "listen to me, you be good, listen to Pippy and Alex. Be gentle with Pippy okay?"

"You have our permission to punish him if he doesn't listen well," Polly said to Piper peering at her son from the corner of her eye.

He moved over to Piper and hugged her leg softly, Piper reached her arm down and caressed his hair. Polly stood up and moved his bags past the doorway of the apartment.

"We really appreciate this, call me if anything and do not have that baby before I get back."

"That's not even close to being funny Pol."

"Shoes off kiddo, gimme a kiss, be good," she said smoothing his hair.

"Bye Pol," she shut the door as Alex came into the hallway.

"Ayiiiiiiiiiiix," he ran down the hall as Alex crouched down just in time to be knocked over into a huge hug.

"Hey Finnster!," she pulled them upright and he sat on her lap.

"What aw we gonna do?" he asked tracing her necklace.

"I don't know dude, what did you bring?"

He took the backpack from Piper, set it on the ground and opened the bag wide revealing some toys, a coloring book, markers, and 2 DVDs. He pulled out 'The Land Before Time.'

"Can we watch this?"

"Yeah buddy of course, oh look what I got us," she scooped him up while he held the dvd and walked into the kitchen. Piper looked down at the backpack and thought to herself, _and so it begins._

Alex passed 1 of the frozen cups to Finn from the freezer and took one herself and headed into the living room. She set him down on the floor, "give Pippy the movie, let me get the rest of the cups." Piper put the dvd on while Alex returned with a dozen dixie cups on a tray, hot water and some tools to break the ice. Piper sat on the couch watching her wife and godson lying on the floor as they chopped through the melting ice cups. Each time they freed a fossil, they found it in the book and went over all sorts of facts about each dinosaur.

"Yep that one matches up, great job Finn, it's a Pteranodon."

"Puh-ter-na-nan-a-don?"

Alex laughed, "no Pteranodon, it's a hard one, they had big wings like this," she spread her arms all the way open, "and flew like birds."

Finn ran around the room with his arms outstretched until he tired himself out. "Pippy, I'm hungwy."

"Let's go see what we have." The three of them walked into the kitchen, Piper looked through their fridge and named what they had.

"What do you want to eat baby?"

"Mac and cheese."

"Of course you do, alright buddy we gotta go get some."

"I can just make it Pipes." She pulled a block of cheese from the refrigerator and took down a box of pasta from the cupboard. Piper stood with her arms crossed and leaned up against the wall.

"I like the kind in the blue box," he said coming up onto his toes.

"Finn that's not even real mac and cheese. I can make you a delicious one with these," she said holding the box of pasta in one hand the brick of cheese in the other.

He shook his head from side to side, _no._

"Finn…," she started to reason with him, as he looked down at the floor and continued to shake his head.

She put her hand on her hip about to fight his defiance, "I can't believe Polly even lets him eat that crap."

"Please it kills her soul, don't even get me started," she said aloud before leaning over towards Alex and whispered, "don't say crap." Alex gritted her teeth and glared at her.

Finn stood beside Alex with his arms wrapped around himself rocking back and forth from his toes to his heals.

She looked down at him feeling somewhat defeated and couldn't fight him, she sighed, "c'mon kid, go put your coat on."

He ran down the hall and put on his coat and shoes. Alex bent down to tie his laces, and he hugged her around the neck, not letting go as she stood up. She stood him up on the mail table and got herself dressed. Piper laughed to herself while she put on her clothes, she looked at Alex and mouthed, "sucker!"

Alex bent down a little and helped hoist him onto her shoulders.

"You're really tall Ayix."

"I've been told bud."

"Alex, please don't smack his head on the doorways."

"When I say 'duck', duck, okay kid?"

"Yup."

They walked down the sidewalk through the wintery cool air, Finn was hunched over resting his chest on the back of Alex's head with his hands clasped under her chin until his legs shot out straight in front of him almost kicking Alex in the face, "Pizza!"

"What the f-, iddlesticks kid?"

He pointed over at the pizzeria.

"I thought you wanted mac and cheese?"

"Pizzzzza."

She looked over at Piper who just shrugged her shoulders. She pivoted toward the pizzeria, and opened the door, "duck."

"1, 2, 3," she hopped a little and lifted Finn off her shoulders and sat him down in a booth with Piper. "Should I just get a small pie?"

"Yeah just a plain, he's not going to eat it if it has vegetables or anything on it."

"_Of course_ he won't."

They sat around the table until the pizza came. After it cooled off Finn picked up a slice with both hands, the tip of the slice wilted down. He bent his mouth underneath it getting sauce on the corners of his mouth and cheeks.

Piper went to wipe his mouth with a napkin, when Alex gently pushed her hand away, "let him be."

"Well then help him, he's a mess."

"Like this Finn," she helped him bend the crust in half and adjusted his hands and took a mock bite.

Piper took a picture of him with his pizza sauce face on her phone, Alex still wouldn't let her wipe the sauce off his face, "he's supposed to be a mess."

They got home and Alex pulled out more things that she had planned out for them to do including supplies to make some homemade play dough.

"Lay some paper down," Piper said sitting atop a stool along their kitchen island.

"It'll be fine Piper, I'll clean everything up at the end."

Piper eased herself off the chair and slowly knelt down joined them on the kitchen floor. They mixed the flour, salt and water until it became the consistency of dough before adding the food coloring. The dough absorbed the color, and as Alex looked around she realized so did their hands and the kitchen floor.

"Shhhhi-" Alex stopped as Piper cut her eyes at her.

"I didn't say anything Ayix."

"I know kiddo, looks like you're gonna need a bath later."

They rolled the dough around, made swords and fought with them until they broke. They made towers, and knocked them down. They put the dough into a tupperware container and set it aside.

Piper dug out Finn's pajamas and Alex started running him a bath.

Piper lowered the lid of the toilet and sat down; she pulled his shirt over his pizza sauce crusted face and tossed his dirty clothes to the side. He made creepy crawly hands and wiggled his blue dyed fingers at Piper.

"C'mon kid, in you go," Alex said kneeling beside the tub.

"No bubbos?"

"Oh yeah, definitely," she poured a third of a bottle of shower gel under the faucet which created an absurd mountain of white frothy bubbles.

She snug her hands under his armpits and was about to sit him in the tub, "test the water."

"What?" she turned to Piper with Finn hanging over the tub.

"You need to stick your elbow in."

She put Finn down on the furry bath mat outside the tub. She bent her arm down into the water, now covered up to her shoulder in bubbles and confirmed, "it's good." She lifted Finn into the water. He scooped bubbles, stuck them to the wall then flattened them with his hands. He played with their shampoo and conditioner bottles, giving them voices and had full conversations with them. Alex cupped the water in her hand and wet his hair before washing it. She styled it into a faux hawk and smiled, "that looks awesome!" He insisted on seeing it, so she lifted him out and showed him in the mirror and put him back in, dripping water around the bathroom floor.

"Here, hold your hands up," he raised his hands by his head. She bent his fingers into a "rock-on" pose, "stick your tongue out," he complied making Piper laugh.

"Hang on buddy," she snapped another photo.

The bubbles disintegrated into now clear water and pink raisin fingers confirmed it was time to get out. "How do I rinse his hair? I need a cup or something."

"Rinse off your hair Finn," Piper told him. He dunked down and thrashed around under the water whipping his head around as he came up, "done!"

"Touché kid."

She helped him out and messily towel dried his hair and wrapped the towel around his waist.

"What are you doing?" Piper asked her gently.

"He's a guy, I don't know!"

"Put it around his shoulders Al," she said giggling. They put on his pajamas. He took Alex's hand and was guiding her toward the living room to his bag of toys when they passed by the nursery.

"This is Mookie's room?"

"Yeah kiddo, what do you think?"

He nodded his head and lifted his arms up. Alex picked him up and rested him on her hip and walked into the nursery. Finn eyed the books along the wall on the tree branches.

"When is Mookie coming?"

"Soon sweetie, want to pick out a book to read?," he nodded, as she ran a hand through his still damp hair. Piper finished cleaning up the bathroom and almost past them in the room while she walked down the hall.

Alex was sitting in the glider as Finn lied on her with his back pressed against her chest. Piper came in and sat on the floor beside them.

"Babe sit up here, we'll move to the floor," Alex said sitting up.

"No I'm fine, keep going." She listened as Alex read "Bread and Jam for Frances."

" 'Why do you keep eating bread and jam' asked Father, when you have a lovely soft-boiled egg?' Oh man kid, this is totally you."

Finn just tongued his cheek, his eyes darting around at the illustrations, not paying attention to Alex's comparison and waited for her to continue. He started to look sleepy and Alex lowered her voice slightly when she glanced at Piper who stared at her dreamily. "What?"

"You're making my uterus throb."

"Guess I still have a few tricks up my sleeve."

"Ayix," Finn whined, forcing her to focus her attention on the story. She finished and brought him into the living room. Piper brought some sheets and a blanket out, "so how are we going to do this? I'm kind of nervous having him up on the couch."

"Lemme grab an extra blanket to make it softer and we can set him up on the floor."

Alex crawled around the floor and set up a bed for him before standing up.

"Can you stay?" he asked from the floor. She looked down at him, he looked so small.

Piper stood near the other side of the blanket with her hands supporting her lower back. She made a puppy face, his words melted her heart.

"Yeah of course," Alex replied, "let me get some extra pillows and stuff okay?"

"Awight."

Alex pulled 2 chairs from their little dining room table and dragged them near the blankets on the floor. She walked out and returned with 2 pillows from their bedroom and another sheet. She lay the tossed pillows next to Finn and draped the sheet over the chairs.

"It's like a tent Pippy," she heard his voice from beneath the sheet, "come in!"

She got down on her knees and crawled under the sheet and lay on her side facing her godson. She rubbed her hand over his chest and asked softly, "did you have a good day?"

"Mmm, hmmm," he nodded, and straightened the blanket over his chest.

Alex crawled under the sheet on the opposite side and laid her head down over her bent arm. Piper stretched her arm up over her head and told them to get a little closer, she took a selfie and sent the photos she took throughout the day to Polly with a text message that said "successful day."

Finn nodded off as Alex stroked his head. He readjusted himself multiple times while Alex looked over at him annoyed that he couldn't stay still, he finally settled facing her, his head tucked under her chin. She looked down at him and inhaled his scent, her breath caught in her chest.

"Go up on the couch," Alex whispered nudging her head towards Piper.

Piper nodded, "are you okay?"

"Yeah," she said smoothing her hand repetitively over Finn's head.

"Because I'm exhausted and you were on your hands and knees crawling after him all day."

"I'm dead," Alex exhaled laughing. "How's Mookie?"

"Fine," she stroked herself maternally. "You're such a softy," she said with a huge smile.

Alex rolled her eyes and looked at Piper, she noticed she was staring at her,"what's with the face?"

"Just thinking about something."

"What?"

Piper shook her head _nothing_, but the smile remained on her face.

"Tell me," she whispered coaxingly.

She swallowed, "you remember the night I met your mom," she stopped and rubbed the nape of her neck, "and you left us alone to make hot cocoa?"

Alex's eyed widened, her eyebrows furrowed at the thought of her mother, and nodded shyly.

"She just said to me how you would put on this front, trying to act all badass when deep down you were just a big sweetheart." The brunette raised her eyebrows surprised to hear that that's what her mother had said to Piper all those years ago. "I'm just thinking about just how true those words are; she knew you well."


	11. Chapter 11

Ok, so this only took 9 hours of my day lol.

The Swedish- ask and you shall receive. Just kidding, I wish I had the time to write whenever I wanted to. Saying that this calms you means so much, thank you.

Rez- if you know theinevitablepipex, thank her for posting it on her page.

Guest- have I experienced this- I can tell you this comes from a place of truth- and to paraphrase Nicky Nichols, ill just let your imagination keep running wild.

Lookuptothesky39-again thank you for your shout out.

This chapter is epically long so I split it into two.

* * *

11

Finn awoke once throughout the night, he came up to his knees and turned around and shook Piper's arm until she woke up, "Pippy, where's my mom?"

She spoke with her eyes closed, "she's at the wedding Finn remember? She'll be back tomorrow."

He laid back down on the blanket next to Alex, who was out cold. He moved his head around the pillow trying to get comfortable.

Piper could hear him rustling under the blanket, constantly readjusting. She cracked an eye open, "lay on your tummy Finn, ill rub your back." She rubbed his back in smooth circles in a dazed manner, until she felt him sit up again. She felt his stare through her closed eyes, she cracked them open, "I can't sweep."

She let out a small whimper, she was so tired. "Try Finn, just lay still."

"I can't. Mommy makes me warm milk."

She leaned up on her elbow, reached down and rubbed Alex's shoulder, "Al." Nothing. "Al," she rubbed harder. "Corpse," she mumbled, "Finn wake her up."

"But she's sweeping."

"I know, that's why I said wake her up, it's okay."

He placed both his hands on her upper shoulder and gently nudged her, "Ayix wake up."

"Shake her Finn, keep going til she opens her eyes."

He climbed up and straddled her hip, and rubs his hands against her shoulder harder, "Ayix." She moved slightly.

He leaned his chest along her side and pushed her eyelid open with his index finger, "Ayix," he whispered. Piper looked on through heavy eyes, amused.

She let out a grumble. He shook her harder, she squinted her eyes shut harder and furrowed her eyebrows, "mmmmm."

He leaned forward onto his chest again, inches from her face, she opened her eyes slightly, eyebrows still crumpled, her gaze was met with Finn's smile. "You're awake!"

"Grrrr."

"You're not a bear Ayix."

"Mmm."

"I need milk."

"Mmmm, hmmm," she turned onto her back, Finn still sat straddled on her waist.

"Ayix, wake up," he nudged her further.

"I'm up, I'm up," her eyes still closed, reaching her arm out blindly searching for her glasses.

"Al, can you heat up some milk for him?"

"Do not even tell me you're awake right now," she said irritated.

"Al please it took me forever to find a comfortable position out here, I don't want to get up."

The brunette opened her grey green eyes, now remembering they were camped out in their living room, "oh….," she inhaled and exhaled deeply, "yeah babe, I got it." She lifted her neck, crunching her abs and looked at the small child sitting on her torso "what's up Finn?" she asked, still composing herself.

"Milk, Ayix."

She was never a morning person, never mind being torn from deep sleep. "Right, sorry bud, 1 cup of warm milk coming up."

She sat up causing him to slide back a little before she caught his back. She managed to get herself in an upright position, picked up Finn and trudged into the kitchen. She did a double take at the large blue splotch on the kitchen floor, remembering the playdough and then sat him up on the counter while she looked for a small pot to warm the milk in. He swung his legs around tapping his heels against the cabinet.

"You are _wide_ awake, huh kid?" she said with a small smile.

He nodded enthusiastically. She leaned her head on one arm which lay over the counter and stirred the milk with a wooden spoon. She moved the pot to another burner, set Finn down on the floor, and pulled a mug down from the cabinet.

"I need my sippy cup."

She raised an eyebrow, _a what? _she thought to herself, "do we have that?," she felt legally drunk.

"In my backpack. When daddy gets my milk, it's not in the sippy cup and I make a mess. Mommy gets really mad."

"Got it, thanks man." He got his cup and another movie from his bag and handed them up to her.

She flipped the movie still in its plastic wrap, "ah Peter Pan, is it new?" she asked taking the cup and poured his milk.

He nodded. "Grandma got it for me for Christmas." She handed him the sippy cup and started picking at the plastic as they walked back to their tent. Piper was once again fast asleep on the couch.

Finn sat cross legged on top of the blanket with his back against the couch and started drinking his milk as Alex gnawed at the plastic wrap with her teeth. He laughed out loud, causing her to raise her pointer to her lips and pointed to Piper.

"She's really sleepy."

"Mookie moves a lot so when Mookie sleeps she can sleep, we have to be really quiet," she looked at him seriously.

He nooded,"can I feel Mookie move?"

Alex's features softened at his innocence, realizing Finn had never felt their baby move.

"Definitely kiddo, first thing in the morning okay? Let Pippy sleep." She put the movie in and mimicked his position sitting beside him. As the movie started he nestled into the space in her lap, like he always did, lied back and drank his milk.

Finn woke up in the makeshift tent, Alex lay beside him, her glasses still on her face, Piper side lying on the couch. He went to the bathroom, and then got his markers and coloring book, and brought them back under the tented sheet to start coloring.

Piper awoke to Alex still passed out on the floor with arms stretched out like superman under her pillow, glasses crooked over her nose. Finn lay on his front coloring.

"Morning Finn," she smiled happy to see her favorite little guy lying next to her favorite lady.

"Good morning Pippy," he scrambled up onto his knees and in the same breath asked, "can I feel Mookie?"

She looked at him somewhat surprised but couldn't fight her smile, "yeah baby of course." He placed his little hand ever so gently on the fabric lying over her skin, it was met promptly which a few quick thumps. His face lit up with a closed mouthed smile. "That's Mookie's feet?"

"I don't know, Mookie's all squished up like this, I have to lay on my back. She climbed down off the couch and onto the blanket. She lay back with a pillow under neck and bent her knees. Finn sat closely on his knees as she placed both of her hands on her skin and poked around, "there's a foot here," she took his hand so he could feel just under her rib to one side. She continued to prod, she felt a big soft lump, "I think this is Mookie's bum," he poked it and brought both his hands over his mouth covering his giggles. "And I know Mookie's head is down here," she said bringing her hands lower.

"Mookie's upside down?" he asked surprised.

"Yep so head is here, butt is here, and feet are here." He looked at her a little puzzled. "Gimme one of your markers babe."

He handed her a marker and sat back on his feet poking Alex slightly. He watched his aunt sketch across her abdomen what she thought she felt, and as it became clearer, he once again excitedly raised onto his knees.

"Can you make a circle right here?" she made a circle with her hands, "I can't see that spot." He bit his bottom lip and diligently drew the best circle he could with sure concentration. "I see it now," he stated looking at the image, "can I color it in?"

"Yeah sure," she'd never said no to him before, she wasn't about to now. Alex woke up and saw Piper lying next to her, her hand holding a rolled up part of her shirt while Finn's shoulder moved vigorously.

"Good morning," she said stretching up onto her arms. "Oh yeah I told him he could feel Mookie first thing in the morning, I guess he took it literally."

"Yeah he did and now he's making me a human Picasso."

Alex wrinkled her eyebrows and looked over Finn's shoulder, "what in the world are you guys doing?"

"Coloring a picture of Mookie."

"I think this is the position today, I could be totally wrong though."

The brunette shook her head from side to side at the ridiculousness of the last 24 hours, "so remember that time, we had a kid for a day and our apartment was completely blown up? We're in _so_ much trouble."

Piper smiled crookedly and shrugged a shoulder.

"You guys hungry?"

"Um, duh?" she stated as if this was an absurd thing to ask, "what do you feel like having?"

"Was thinking bagels?"

"I like bagels," Finn stated raising his free hand as if placing his vote.

"Oooh, not feeling a bagel right now. Can you make that spinach artichoke thing in the bread?"

"Yeah I can but you want that for breakfast?"

"Mmm, hmm," she replied with a _your point being? _smirk_._

"Whatever you want, but I'm gonna go grab us a normal persons breakfast. Finn what kind of bagel do you want?"

"The one with no things on it."

"Ok that would be 1 plain," she scribbled on an imaginary pad in her hand, "would he eat cream cheese or butter?"

"Cream cheese!" he said and got back to coloring.

"Well okay sir will that complete your order?"

"Yep."

"I'll let you guys finish your art project, don't wash it off though, I want a picture of this."

Alex returned and passed Piper his bagel to unwrap and worked her way around the kitchen. She pulled out the necessities and got to work. Finn walked in, "can I help?"

"Sure bud," she helped him wash his hands and placed the bag of frozen spinach into the colander in the sink, "press your hands into there to get the water out."

He sat on the edge of the sink looking down at the green substance, "what _is_ that?" he asked completely revolted.

"Spinach! It makes you strong like Popeye. Want to try some?" He shook his head no.

"What's Popeye?"

"Aw man, he's this big sailor who gets really strong when he eats his spinach and then he can save his love Olive Oil."

She largely chops artichokes and peppers and puts them into the food processor. She presses down on the handle and the ingredients spin through the clear plastic.

"Can I try that?"

"Al…," Piper calls out nervously hearing Finn's request.

"I got him Pipes."

"The blades in there are really sharp, so I need to help you okay?" She placed her hand over both of his, and steadied the food processor with the other hand.

She reached down to pull a block of mozzarella from the crisper, never taking her hand off of his knee.

She cut the block of cheese in large pieces and proceeded to chop it into finer pieces in the processor with Finn. They crushed the garlic in the press, and poured in some feta.

"Look how beautiful all of the colors look!"

Finn looked into the bowl unimpressed. She pulled two crescent roll tubes from the refrigerator, started tearing the paper and handed one to Finn. She pulled hers open and let the tube pop, making Finn jump. He handed his back to Alex afraid of having the tube pop in his hands. She unrolled the dough and laid it in a pattern on the baking sheet, Finn copied and finished the line of dough. They scooped the contents of the bowl, laid it on the dough and then pulled the dough overlapping each piece, brushed it with an eggwash and shut it into the oven.

"Ok we're gonna acquaint you with Popeye kid." She pulled up an episode on Youtube, "I haven't watched this in years."

Alex does her best Olive Oil impression while Finn flexes his non-existent muscles. The timer goes off and she retrieves a slice of the now crispy braid for Piper. Piper offers him a bite which he declines. Alex pouts out her bottom lip, making a puppy face.

"Are you sad?"

Alex nods, "I wish you'd try it Finn."

He looks at Piper and then to Alex still pouting, feeling guilty, "just one bite," he says holding up 1 finger.

He takes the smallest bite and 5 seconds later approves with 2 thumbs up.

Pipers phone buzzed with a text from Polly

Polly: "Good morning. So guess who has the biggest hangover ever, when did I get old?"

Piper: "Guess who just ate spinach. Sounds like you had a good night."

Polly: "No way, not my son? What'd you guys do, bribe him with gummy bears?"

Piper: "Just another victim of Alex's charm."

Polly: "Oh God help me. It was a nice wedding, fun reception, maybe too fun. Was he good for you guys?"

Piper: "No he was a horrible delinquent, we just busted him from juvie."

Polly: "So hilarious. Just let me know when you're ready, well come get him, or maybe just Pete."

Piper: "Take your time, we're good. Go sober up."

* * *

Piper sets down the sage stick on an upturned jar lid on their bedroom dresser and pumps a dab of lotion into her hands. She massages it into the dry skin and works her rings off her swollen fingers with the slick consistency. She wiggles them with resistance until they finally give and fall onto the floor, her engagement ring lay inches from her feet,as she watches her wedding ring roll under the bureau. She settles herself onto the floor, slumps her shoulders and begins to cry.

Alex steps into their apartment very quietly, she'd learned her lesson twice that week, once when she came home nosily and prematurely woke Piper from a nap, and once when she breathed too loudly while they watched a movie. Alex mistakenly made an attempt to defend herself, explaining that she hadn't done anything to deserve being crapped on. She endured a 15 minute rant about how she didn't understand what she was feeling, how uncomfortable she was, that their baby was never going to come out, how it felt like she had a basketball between her legs, how she was insensitive for waking her up when she barely gets any rest anymore and how everything was her fault. This was met 10 minutes later with profuse apology.

Piper had taken the last week before their due date off from work, and there had been close to zero baby action the whole week aside from the occasional intermittent contraction. She felt this unremitting need to clean every palpable surface in their home, spray everything with a lavender mist, re-fold all the baby clothes already prepared in the dresser, and now the faint scent of sage filtered through the apartment and filled the brunette's nostrils.

She tip toed through their apartment to find Piper sitting on the floor of their bedroom, her back toward the door.  
"Are we having a séance? What's with the sage burning?"

Piper moved a hand around her head pulling all her hair that hung on the left over to the right and turned around to meet the figure standing in the doorway.

"Pipes, I was kidding," she said in an apologetic tone seeing the evidence of a meltdown strewn across the blonde's face. Her wife had been labile and unnaturally sensitive over the entire last week, she didn't mean to rouse anymore unwanted feelings.

"What's wrong?" She knelt down beside Piper on their rug.

"I lost my wedding ring," she said through her tears.

Alex felt an immediate sadness clench in her stomach, and rubbed her thumb against the circle of metal around her own finger, glancing at it slightly, now an abandoned twin. "What happened?"

"I've been feeling so frustrated and moody lately, I feel like I'm putting off bad vibes and there's just negative energy everywhere…," Alex lifted the blondes chin mid-sentence and cut her off, placing her index finger over the blonde's lips, she couldn't stand the self-deprecation, "just say what happened."

"So I was smudging with the sage, and I set it down here," Alex looked up and saw the burnt out stick, "and my hands were so dry from cleaning all week, so I put some lotion on to moisturize and tried to get my rings off but they were stuck and I pulled so hard and I lost it."

Alex curled her head more closely, facing the blonde, "wait, so it's in here?"

She nodded, frowning, fighting back her tears.

Alex laughed out, "so why are you crying? We'll just look for it."

"It's under there," she gestured toward the bureau, while shrugging her shoulders, "I couldn't get it out."

Alex kissed the top of her head while leaning down underneath the bureau using her phone as a flashlight, "I see it, just pass me the hanger."

"I feel like I'm crazy," she stated flatly, handing Alex the hanger.

A few swipes across the wooden floor and she picked up the sparkling band between her thumb and index finger and held it out to her wife."You're not crazy, you're just tired."

Piper shook her head, "can you just put them in my jewelry box?" she asked slipping off her engagement ring and handed it to Alex, "I don't want to deal with this again."

Alex stood up and placed the rings in her box. She slipped a charm off a silver chain and slid Piper's rings through the necklace. She bent back down, "lift up your hair," she said as she reached around Pipers neck and clasped the chain. She adjusted the chain so it was even, and Piper fondled her rings that lay on her chest and exuded a small smile.

She helped Piper off the floor. "I'm sorry I've been such a train wreck, I'm just done babe. If she checks me tomorrow and I'm not more open I'm gonna smoke this kid out."

Alex laughed out and squeezed her shoulders. Their midwife examined Piper 6 days ago and she was just slightly open which she was reassured was a great sign and was given more information on how to get things moving. They tried going for long walks, and different exercises. After much urging, she convinced Alex to rub an oil near her cervix while she did nipple stimulation, but all it did was make her horny.

The brunette walked on eggshells behind the blonde and softly asked,"wanna go for a walk?"

"I don't want to do anything else," she said easing onto the couch. "I don't want to move." She didn't dare ask if she felt any signs of impending labor throughout the day for fear she'd awake the pure evil she'd become familiarly acquainted with over the last few days.

"Movie?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

"Any preference?"

"Just something light hearted, something to make me laugh."

Alex slipped 'The Sweetest Thing," into their dvd player and slouched onto the couch and crossing her ankles on their coffee table. She put a pillow across her stomach and rested one of Piper's feet onto it.

"Oh I love this part," Alex said sitting slightly more upright. _"It smells like moldy ass, is what it smells like,"_ she quoted the movie as she subconsciously pressed her fingers into the swollen skin of Piper's feet causing it to indent. She laughed hard, as the tin foil shaped swan holding old leftovers soared through the sky and slammed onto the windshield in the movie, causing the pillow on her stomach to bounce around, breaking Piper's attention from the tv.

"Are you seriously playing with my disgusting feet right now?"

Alex's hands froze, and turned toward Piper waiting for her reprimand like a naughty child.

"I just don't understand how you're not repulsed by them."

Alex exhaled relieved. "Is it bothering you? They're only _slightly_ doughy, it's fun." She laughed.

"Shut up, I hate you," she said softly through delirious laughter. She peered at the brunette still reclined on her back, judging her completely, "you're so strange."

"Hey, you picked me, so what does that say about you?" she continued kneading Piper's topmost foot.

* * *

Piper waited on the table, naked from the waist down. Today was her due date; she glared at the date on her phone, "what a tease."

The midwife walked in and listened to the familiar complaints of overdue ladies and offered to check her cervix. She offered to move her cervix around separating the water bag that could potentially cause contractions to start up labor.

"One and a half, so it's a little more from last week, it's much softer and short though which is also important."

"One and a half? Seriously? That's it?" she said frustrated, sitting up slightly.

"Lie back down, let me move the water bag away, it might hurt a little alright?"

"Go for it." Moments later her legs tensed and she winced with discomfort.

"Whoa whoa, try to relax, press your bottom down and breathe." Piper followed her instructions and gripped the side of the table, Alex just kept her head down.

"Ok after that, you're about two. This baby is really low so that's why you're feeling so much pressure. You might have a little bit of bleeding later, it's no need to come into the hospital. Try to wait until your contractions are every five minutes for at least an hour. If your water breaks you don't need to come flying in, try to rest, let the contractions build up. Alright? It's hard to stay home. You know from class a first baby can take a while."

Despite her initial threats, Piper did not try to light a fire and smoke their baby out, but instead she arrived for an ultrasound and fetal monitoring, 3 days later to check on the baby's well-being. When the technician told her everything looked great, she felt slightly guilty and selfish for having hoped she'd have a reason to be induced that day. They went home with more reassurance that the date they had become fixated on is just an estimate and most babies are born two weeks before or after that date but they wouldn't let her go past that point.

The blonde slowly paced between the long hall and the kitchen while Alex prepared their dinner, "do they seriously think I'm supposed to be mentally capable of handling this for another 11 days?"

"I know babe, I'm getting anxious too."

"I love you Mookie, but this is not okay."

After dinner, Alex tried to lighten Pipers mood. She made a little "eviction notice" sign for Piper to hold in while she took a picture of their final days as a family of 2. She sent it to herself in an email and dragged the icon into a folder of pictures that Piper wanted to use to scrapbook later.

"Why don't we print some of these and work on a page or two?" the brunette suggested. Piper welcomed the distraction, she used wavy scissors to start trimming photo edges and laid them out over the scrapbook pages. She paused here and there to get through a few irregular contractions hoping they would continue, but they spaced out.

They went off to bed, and talked in the dark, the large body pillow remained between them. She felt Alex's fingers stroke through her hair untangling small knots. She turned over to her other side and wiggled her bottom into Alex's lap, sticking the body pillow between her legs and sighed. She woke up to an extremely strong contraction, but lay still and blew it away. She was initially irritated at the weight of Alex's arm strewn over her body, not needing anything additional to add to her pain, but as this contraction melted away, she was grateful for the proximity of her wife. She laid nervously awaiting a contraction of similar strength but it never came; her mind started wandering in a dreamy transported state and was overcome with euphoria at how lucky she was. She got up to pee and settled back into bed. She turned her side lamp on, and withdrew her journal from the drawer of her nightstand. She fluffed her pillow behind her neck, sat upright, moved Alex's arm back over her body like it had been before and started writing.

Alex woke up before the sun was up and encouraged Piper to switch her position from upright with a dangling neck into something more stable. She removed her open journal that had slid between them, her eyes caught pages and pages of scribbled messy blue script. She shut it and reached over Piper to put it back in her drawer, when she said, "you can read it."

"I don't want to, those are your private thoughts."

"The last few pages are kind of like a letter, you can add to it if you want." She turned to her side and fell back asleep.

Alex tried to make out where her last entry ended and the one from the night began.

_You're hurting me, do you know that? I can't decide whether I'm more desperate to meet you or more desperate to have another day where I avoid feeling more of the contractions that I just felt rip through my body. Thanks for letting me have a halfway decent sleep though. Your mom's arm is lying across me keeping us both safe. I hope you can understand how much love we had for each other the day we decided to make you. I hope you always feel wanted and safe and that you can be yourself around us. So many people are excited to meet you; they've all given us lots of advice and personal memories to help you be a happy and healthy little person. We have so many gifts to help welcome you into our lives and help take care of you. I hope the names we picked for you suit you well and I'm so curious to see what you look like and how you'll act. I'm sure you'll teach me lots, you already have. I want to expose you to everything the in the world-the good and the bad, I don't want to shelter you. I'd love to take you to places your mom and I have been able to experience and see it through your eyes. I want everything for you Mookie and I'll try so hard to give you the best of everything, and as hard as it may be I'll try not to let my expectations run your life. I hope you'll try things even if you're wary and know that it's okay to fail and I'll be proud of you as long as you tried your best. I hope you're able to laugh at yourself when you do fail, and know that with some thing's, some people, will simply just be better than you and that's okay too. I hope you question the things you're taught, but please do so respectfully, everyone deserves to be treated with compassion and dignity. I hope we remain fortunate enough to stay in this cultural mecca and that you grow up among the great expanse of the diversity that comprises this city. I'm not even going to pretend that a carton of takeout from 3 different continents doesn't present itself in this home on a weekly basis, but I kind of love it too. You'll hear music from all over the world pumping through our speakers, and dozens of different languages on any given day just walking along the sidewalk-I hope you learn to embrace that diversity and see how beautiful difference can be. I'll try not to hover over you and allow you to fall down so you can learn how to get back up. I may need to look back at this later to remind myself, but I'll let you experiment with different things and dress yourself however you want so long as all the important parts are covered and you're not hurting anyone in your process. I'm kind of a cool person, at least right now, I'll try not to embarrass you with mom jeans or old school hairstyles. I hope I made you feel like you can trust me and I won't judge you but I'll listen to you and try to help you as your mother and your friend. I know I will mess things up along the way, but you're my first, and the way I'm feeling right now, probably my last. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'll try to keep you thinking I do until you figure me out. I keep trying to remind myself that I'm not always going to be right—your mother jumps at every chance to remind me of this too. I hope this is the start of many letters, I'll try to keep them in a book for you to read when you're older, but if this is the only letter you ever get from me, I'm apologizing now, I'm kind of notorious for making too many goals and failing to finish them—example of me as a human being, right there kiddo. I already love you so very much._

"What could I possibly add to this?" Alex thought to herself. She picked up the pen and gave it a go:

_So check out the penmanship kid, how's that for another example of imperfection? The problem is your mom's brain works faster than her hand so her words come out looking like that ^. She's exhausted and currently snoring in our bed, she said I could read her thoughts to you and I really hope for those same things for you too Mookie. I made your mom wait a long time before I was finally ready to be a parent, I'm still not, but I want you so much. It feels weird to write that word to describe myself, sometimes I feel like you're already here, this person that I'm responsible for, but sometimes I still get really scared that I'm really not going to know what to do with you. It blows my mind that you're pure, a perfect ball of innocence, that's untouched by so much of the madness that surrounds us daily. Your mom has done an amazing job to keep you safe and Ill do whatever I can to keep you unscathed. I promise I'll take good care of you kid and if I don't know something I'll figure out a way to find out, I don't care how many people I have to harass in the process. I do kind of wish that you'd decide you've run out of space and put on your miner's cap and look for the light already. Your mom is really sore and has been really patient waiting for you. The last two weeks have been rough, we're both foamin' at the mouth to finally meet you and bring you home. I can't wait to hang out with you and hear all the stuff that's going to come out of your mouth. I promise I'll read to you all the time, we have quite the collection here. I want you to have adventures like all the characters in your books. Sometimes mom and I sit in your room and read to you, you go crazy listening about all the journeys, I wonder about the questions you'll ask me or how many times I'm going to have to read the same stories over and over again, I'll probably have them memorized. Whenever you're ready, we're waiting._


	12. Chapter 12

This is the second upload of the day (1/15/14), make sure you read chapter 11 first. I split them into 2 because of the length.

Thanks for all the continued support. You're the bestest!

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12

They sat at their table taking in a late breakfast, Piper was mid-sip of orange juice when she pulled the glass away from her mouth and closed her eyes. She breathed audibly through her nose until the pain went away. Throughout the early afternoon, the contractions continued closer and closer together until they were about 7 minutes apart. When she realized after the first hour that these weren't going away she tried walking through the apartment to keep them going strong. She made herself dizzy lapping the same rooms, so she insisted on slowly climbing stairs of their apartment complex. When they started getting to a point where she couldn't talk through the pain, they went back inside their own apartment to try to take a break. Like clockwork, every five minutes a new pain would come, it felt like her bones were being pulled apart, with horrible cramping. After about 60 seconds the pain would subside and she'd rest in between. Alex only asked her once earlier if she wanted to go to the hospital, but she replied slightly annoyed that she would tell her when she was ready.

"Shit!" she stood up gripping the doorway and rubbed her own back, Alex moved her hand to copy the motion but her hand was swatted away, "don't touch me."

Alex retracted her hand and just stood by, after that contraction passed, Piper changed her position and leaned against the backboard of their bed. "It's so fucking hot in here!"

"Do you want a cold towel?"

She nodded as she felt her body start to tighten again, while Alex went away to quickly soak a towel in cold water. She returned and placed it behind her neck.

"Where did you go?" she said through closed eyes, tilting her head back slightly welcoming the cool moisture.

"To get the towel babe."

Piper readjusted her position again to her side moaning hard through the next contraction, while Alex whispered to her that she was doing a great job.

While the next one started to build, she asked Alex to put pressure on her back.

Alex immediately pressed into her lower back but made a face, _hadn't she just done that and was swatted away?_ She remembered not to take anything that was said to heart, that the erratic behavior was normal. She got a can of seltzer from the refrigerator in between contractions and rolled it along the small of Piper's back.

"I need something," she said in an altered state. "I need to move."

It took getting through several more contractions before she was able to get off the bed. During this time Alex insisted on calling Polly, so that she could at least be there to help get them to the hospital, but she was starting to freak out.

The distance from the bed to their bathroom was maybe 10 feet, but Piper was so hesitant to take anything more than a baby step. She leaned on Alex as she took another step to the bathroom, when she felt her back and front tighten again; she draped her arms around Alex's neck and pressed her body into hers, resting her cheek on her chest. Alex leaned against the wall, baring Pipers full body weight, as she supported her wife who hung loosely in her arms. Alex encouraged her to get to the bathroom before the next one came, trying so hard not to demand that they go to the hospital _yesterday_, but Piper refused to move. She needed to stay in this position; she couldn't put into words what she felt in this position, speaking was out of the question. She needed to stay in Alex's embrace, just-like-this, she trusted Alex whole heartedly and just needed to lay in her arms, she felt fully supported. She moaned and talked herself through her contraction, "c'mon baby," she whispered to Mookie as she rocked her hips.

Polly let herself in and made her way to their bedroom. With her help, Alex got her on the toilet and started the shower that Piper demanded. Again, she insisted on staying in the same position on the toilet, unable to move.

"Piper please don't have our baby in the toilet," she begged more seriously though she had a tone of sarcasm in her voice.

"She's doing so much better than I did, I was restless after an hour."

Piper peered at Alex and told her to turn the shower off that she couldn't stand up. She had been plowing through contractions every three to five minutes for at least four hours. Alex was so proud of her, but the noises she was making in pain were getting to her, it was really hard to listen to and she wanted to go. She felt like had run a marathon herself.

After much coaxing that she was cutting it close, Piper listened to Polly. They grabbed their bag and went down the elevator to the ground level. Polly said she was going to get her SUV and pull it around the front, when Piper said they could walk the three blocks to the hospital.

Alex almost lost it, "Piper we're not walking there. You're going to end up delivering our baby on the sidewalk like a cat, please!" Piper heard how tense Alex was in her voice and rationalized getting in the car. Polly ran off and pulled her SUV up front.

"Bump," Polly said as a warning to prepare for the jostling of the car.

Piper gripped the edges of the seat breathing through the pain, this was so much worse than walking around. Alex could see the grimace of her face in the sun visor's mirror. She wrapped her arms around the seat and smoothed the wrinkles over Piper forehead, "relax your head," she brought her hands down to her lips, "relax your mouth." She pushed her hands smoothly over her shoulders and arms, "let it go Pipes, keep your body relaxed, we're almost there."

Polly went over some other less than impeccable street paving, "the bumps Polly!" Piper whined at the audacity of the city's potholes.

"I'm sorry Pipes, its Manhattan, we're here."

They got upstairs, they gave her a gown to change into and a cup. She stared at the nurse who gave her the cup and put it on the table with no intention of ever peeing in that cup. She pulled the curtain closed and got changed with Alex's help. The nurse started asking her demographical information, Piper gave the nurse her name, when another contraction came, "I feel like I'm gonna shit my pants," she said almost crying.

"Oooookay, can we have someone check this patient, please?"

A young resident came into the curtain introduced herself and asked if she could examine her and asked Alex to step out.

"I'm not going anywhere, who are you? She sees the midwives."

"Ok, she looks really active, let me just check her and I'll let the midwife on call know one of her patients is here."

Piper stroked Alex's arm soothingly, "it's fine, just let her check."

The resident slipped on a sterile glove and examined Piper when her eyes went wide.

She called out over her shoulder, "she's eight to nine, plus one station, bulging bag, I need a room, page the midwife." She turned back toward Piper, "you're almost done, we're going to move you in a room in just a second, alright? What number baby is this for you?"

"My first."

"Nice job, I just need to listen to your baby's heartbeat really quick and we'll get you down to a room." Quick thumps were recorded on a strip of paper, when the midwife came in excited to see one of her favorite patients, "hey! what's going on?" Alex practically fell on the floor she was so relieved to see this woman. The midwife got the brief report from the resident and helped move Piper to a room. Polly was directed to a waiting area while Piper got settled into a new bed. The resident tried to put the bands around her torso to monitor the contractions and the fetal heart beat, when Piper unstrapped the band and glared at the resident. The midwife helped her take the band off and whispered to the resident, "healthy mom, healthy kid, no meds in her system, we'll just get a heartbeat every five minutes, don't strap these on her, she's obviously not going to let you anyway."

"I feel so much pressure," Piper grunted out, "I'm not pushing, my body's just pushing down."

The midwife told her she could break her water, that she could leave it alone and let it break by itself but it would slow the process down.

"Just break it, I don't care," she whined. A warm gush of clear fluid poured out, soaking the pad on the bed. Alex's eyed widened at the amount of fluid, she turned away and just looked at Piper.

"You're open all the way, so whenever you feel like that you can't back off that pressure, let me know."

She nodded quietly, turning to her side and closed her eyes in between the contraction. The next contraction was more intense now that the cushion from the water bag was gone and she told her she felt like she needed to push. She was told to take a deep breath and push down long and hard and to try to repeat while she still felt the pressure in her body. She was told she was doing a perfect job. The midwife set up the table, and asked the nurse let down the bed rail so Alex could help support Piper. Alex started hyperventilating as the bright blue table was opened and the light came down from the ceiling.

"Hey, you slow your breathing too, no fainting on me. If you hit the deck, no one's gonna help you, were here for her and your baby."

Alex nodded and rested her head next to Piper on the white hospital sheet. She kissed her forehead and held her hand.

"Okay I feel it," Piper prompted her again. She was told to hold her top leg back and to curl her chin down to her chest while she pushed.

"Keep going, keep going, perfect, and rest." After she pushed for another 10 contractions, she was becoming discouraged.

"Can you see Mookie at all?" Piper asked exhaustedly. The nurse looked at the midwife and mouthed, "Mookie?" It definitely wasn't the strangest name she had heard but it was up there.

"Their baby's nickname, this is a surprise baby." She turned back to Piper, "I promise I won't announce it and ruin it for you." Piper nodded. "When you push I can see the top of your baby's head, when you stop it goes back in. It's supposed to come slowly, you're doing great."

She pushed a few more times and got to a point where their baby's head came into view and didn't retreat. "It's never going to come out! Can't you just pull it out?" she asked desperately breathing quickly.

"Slow your breaths. You're going to do it, I can't pull your baby out. I can get a mirror so you can see if you want, your baby's right there."

She shook her head no. She rested her head back down, her leg hung lazily over her arm, Alex fed her ice chips.

She pushed again, bringing the baby closer and backed off pushing until the contraction went away, her body was shaking. "You're going to feel a ton of burning, you just have to push past that burn."

She pushed again, felt the burn and backed off again, "I can't, I can't, " she cried. She blew through the contraction until it went away.

"You got it Pipes, you're gonna do it, you're so strong" Alex encouraged her. The midwife brought a baby blanket up onto her chest, and told her she could do it, that she already was doing it, that her baby was so close. "Reach down and feel your baby's head, it's right there." Her hand trembled as she reached down and was met with wet, hot, hair.

"Oh my God," her heart melted at the touch of the hard, hot head that stretched her skin, "okay, I can do it."

She took another deep breath as the contraction came and pushed through a burning sensation that felt like she was on fire, when she was told to look down, and she felt immediate relief and a pink, wet, screaming baby was placed onto her chest.

She immediately burst into convulsive tears as their baby stretched out over the blanket. "Hi baby, oh you're so gorgeous," she said as she wiped her baby off. She felt Alex's soft kisses on her face and her hot tears rolling off her cheeks and over their baby. Alex rested a shaky hand over their baby's head, caressing the wisps of hair in her fingertips.

"So what do we have ladies?" she nurse asked so she could pull a pink or blue paper from the cabinet.

Piper moved their baby's scrunched up legs out of the way, and started crying again.

"We have a son," Alex said happily. She kissed her son's wet head, "oh Jamie, mommy did so good."

She started inspecting him, "does he have all his toes and stuff?" she asked Piper while moving their child gently this way and that.

The midwife grasped the cord and waited for it to stop pulsing before she clamped it, "Alex do you want to cut the cord?"

She shook her head nervously, no.

"You have to! It's a right of passage Alex," Piper blurted out.

"Okay just tell me what to do," she said taking the shiny scissor.

"Just cut between 'here' and 'here', it's tough like chicken. He can't feel anything, you're not gonna hurt him."

She cut the cord separating their son.

"Piper just push gently so I can deliver your placenta. Alex you can move her gown out of the way and put your baby right onto her chest, it's easier for him to transition that way."

Alex had no confidence in her hands, Piper lifted their baby James gently just an inch off her now wet gown, while Alex pulled it up out of the way and she rested their son skin to skin against her.

"Do you want to see the placenta?" She showed them the side that was attached to Piper and then inverted it showing them the baby's shiny side, the cord, and the amniotic sac and explained that's where he lived.

She cleaned up and offered to go get Polly. Alex hugged her and they both thanked her for her help.

"She did all the work," she said pointing to Piper, "I'll go get your friend."

Polly came in and practically curled up into the bed with them. The pink baby laid against Piper chest licking his hand, while slowly opening and closing his eyes.

"This is your Aunt Polly, James."

"He's a boy?" she said stroking his back under the blanket, "he's so sweet."

She sat with them for a while, "I'll let you guys rest, I'll be back in the morning." She kissed her friends and her new nephew and left.

"Pipes, he's so beautiful," Alex whispered to her. She gazed down at her son, still wide eyed, complacently resting.

"I'm sorry if I was a bitch earlier," she said laughing.

"Your repertoire of profanities was pretty impressive," she said adjusting herself at the edge of the bed,"you're incredibly strong, you know that? Your sounds were killing me though, I wish I could've put on headphones."

She just looked over and smiled at her. "I want to try to nurse him, but I want you to hold him first." The nurse scooped him up, swaddled and placed him in Alex's arms. She clutched him closely to her chest afraid to drop him and bounced him slightly. Piper started to dose off, her son blinked his eyes slowly and yawned, making Alex giggle. She pressed her lips to his head, "here goes nothing, kid."


	13. Chapter 13

13

Alex gently woke up Piper and said she was going to get a nurse to help her breastfeed, after their son innately started rooting against her own chest. The nurse unwrapped him down to his diaper and explained how to properly support his neck and how his belly should always be against hers to ensure a proper latch. It took a few tries but Alex looked on in awe as their son finally latched on and looked wide eyed at Piper.

"This feels really weird," Piper looked down at Jamie as he chomped away.

"You make your own food, it's pretty fricken cool," she said to Piper while she stroked her son's cheek causing him to break his latch and turn his head toward her.

"Ow," Piper yelled as their son popped off taking her with him, as he looked for Alex's touch, she shoved her wife.

"Sorry, how was I supposed to know he was going to do that?"

"It's a reflex, they turn their face to know where to get milk," the older nurse explained to them.

Alex stroked his other cheek and he turned and opened his mouth, "cool!" She stroked his cheek again, laughing, and Piper tried to angle herself so he could get back on.

"He's so smart," she said in a baby voice, looking over him in adoration. She shoved a pillow under Piper's elbow when she said he was getting heavy. She kissed Piper and pulled her long hair back into a sweaty messy bun.

"He stopped," Piper said looking down at their baby who looked restfully content. She broke his latch with her finger and handed him to Alex, "try to burp him." The nurse helped Alex adjust him next to her shoulder as she awkwardly held their son against her chest and patted his back softly.

"How do we know if he's full?" she asked the nurse as her son burped near her ear. She pulled him back slightly and looked him curiously.

"There's lots of ways, falling asleep during a feeding is the most common. If they stay sleeping when you try to break their latch and they don't wake up and start rooting around again is another way to tell. The amount of wet diapers. You should try offering him the other side after he burps, if he's still hungry he'll latch on again, if he's not just start with that side next time. You should keep a log though until your mature milk comes in so you don't forget. When it comes in, _trust me_, your body will tell you what side was last," she says laughing.

Alex looks to her to help pass their son back to Piper, "you do it, just support his head, you can be a little rough with him, especially now, he looks pretty zonked out." Alex holds him against her chest while leaning her knee into the bed and puts him against Piper. She gets up to use the bathroom.

"Sorry we have so many questions," Piper says to the nurse as she tries to see if she can wake up her son to latch onto the opposite side.

"You're supposed to ask, you're both very eager, it's good, anything that comes to mind, just ask." Piper tickled her baby's cheeks but James was happily in a milk coma and showed no interest, so she laid him back against her skin and covered his back with her sheets.

Alex returned and the nurse handed her a little blue bowl and asked her if she wanted to help her give him his first bath when Alex froze as another woman screamed from another room, "well if she just did that, I guess I could handle a bath," she said pointing to Piper.

"Exactly, if you said no, I was going to give you that guilt trip, so good answer," replied the nurse.

Alex filled the blue bowl with water and winked at Piper as she stuck her elbow in it. The nurse stared at her as she removed her giant elbow from the blue bowl, "she told me I had to check the water, when I almost cooked our nephew a few weeks ago."

"She's right, the hospital water doesn't get that hot though, but good practice." She explained to Alex that it was important to have everything you need ready before getting them wet to minimalize the time they were exposed to cold air. She brought their baby over to the scale and weighed him, "seven pounds, fourteen ounces, close to eight, where'd you hide him? I thought for sure he was going to be a peanut, s'probably cause you're tall."

Piper looked down at her deflated mush of skin and sighed, "yeah he felt like the full eight, give me some credit here!"

Alex took a picture of their baby on the scale, before the nurse moved him under the warmer and removed his diaper. She explained it was best to give them a bed bath until the stump from the umbilical cord fell off. Alex took mental notes and watched as she wiped his skin gently while keeping the rest of his body covered and warm. The nurse passed her the cloth and she repeated the motions on the other side of his body until everything except his head was cleaned. She taught her how to swaddle him, while Piper told her to pay attention so she could show her later as she rested sleepily in the bed. After he was swaddled, they moved into the bathroom and the nurse held him like a football under her arm and let the water run over his head. His eyes opened and he looked around, "most baby's love this, we think the sound of the water makes them feel like they're still inside." She pumped some soap on a bristled brush and started scrubbing his head hard,

"Hey isn't that gonna hurt him?," Alex asked her alarmed at the amount of elbow she was putting behind her scrubs.

"Nope, I told you, you can be a little rough with them. The bristles are soft see," she scrubbed Alex's forearm, "you try."

She had Alex press her hips against the sink and nestled the baby between her hip and her arm. Alex scrubbed his head softly and glared at the nurse, "great and like that your kid is going to have the dirtiest head in school." She put more force behind Alex's hand, "did he seem distressed when I was doing it? he's fine," she removed her hand as Alex scrubbed a little harder and made sure she got behind the folds of his neck.

"Great now just rinse his head and we'll dry him off and get him a hat," she said as she walked out into the room and riffled around looking for the pink and blue, hospital issued striped hat. Alex dipped his head under the water and helped smooth the soap of his hair, he alertly looked around and seemed calm but she start to cry. The nurse walked back in and watched Alex's shoulders shaking as the newborn licked the water trailing down his lips.

"What happened?," she asked as she lifted the baby away from Alex and dried his head.

"I don't know what I'm doing," she choked out quietly as she didn't want Piper to hear her.

"He doesn't know that," she whispered, still tousling his little head. "You're both doing fine. He's eaten and now he's clean, those are two major things under your belt." She passed him back to Alex gently. "You're here for two days, ring the bell with every feeding until she feels confident and you ask for help with anything that you're not comfortable doing on your own yet. The more you hold him, the more normal it feels, he looks very happy," she said as she sat Alex down in the rocker beside her sleeping patient. She sat on the edge of Piper's bed next to Alex's foot that pushed off gently to get the rocker moving.

She watched as Alex gazed into her son's face, "the trick is to learn their cue's for hunger before they get to starvation mode. You're gonna miss it sometimes and they'll wail and you'll get frustrated but it'll get better with time. Most of them only cry when they're hungry, or wet and some just like to be held. We'll go over things with you while you're here and send you home with it all written down and phone numbers if you need more support."

Alex looked up at her gratefully and then looked back down at her son. "He's so small," she said as she gently bounced him in her arms, "his hair looks lighter than it did at first."

"You mean when it was all covered in birthy junk? Yeah, good thing you scrubbed his head so well," she shoved her knee lightly and stood up. "Honestly, he's in capable hands. It's refreshing to see a planned delivery with two parents who are so enthusiastic to learn. Just press the button if you need me, I'm right outside," she said and walked out pumping a dollop of alcohol soap and rubs her hands.

Alex just stares at Jamie perfectly still in her arms, and wonders at all of his innocence, taking in the surrealistic feeling of how this tiny person was the same Mookie that danced and wiggled all throughout those nights. She glanced over at Piper who looked completely exhausted and felt beside herself with love. She held him for hours until out of nowhere his little face wiggled and she felt his body try to scrunch up underneath the tight swaddle. She carried him over and sat with him on Piper's bed as she tried to wake her up. Piper blinked hard a few times until Alex and Jamie came into view and she smiled widely as he whimpered.

"I think he's hungry again," she said placing him on the bed, as Piper undid the top of her gown. She unwrapped him from his blankets, and with slightly more sure hands placed him against Piper's skin.

"Thanks," she said, "how long was I sleeping for?"

"I don't know, maybe two hours?"

"That was like the most solid nap ever," she said with sleep in her voice, as she adjusted the pillows around her sides and tried to figure out how to this on the opposite side. She tickled his lips until he opened his mouth wide and shoved him on, watching his jaw to make sure he was on correctly.

"Can you call my parents? I don't know where my phone is."

"It's like three in the morning, you don't think we should wait?"

"Absolutely not, wake them up." Alex dialed her in-laws and anxiously waited for someone to pick up when she heard Piper's mother answer groggily through the phone,

"Hello?"

"Hey Carol, good morning."

"Alex?," she said concerned, "is everything alright?"

"Yeah, someone wants to say hi…," she held the phone to Piper's ear.

"He's hereeee," she told her mom softly.

"Who's here?"

"Your grandson?"

"You had him? I have a grandson?! Bill wake up, Piper had her baby."

"Yup, last night, we barely made it to the hospital," she apologetically looked up at Alex and mouthed "sorry."

"Everything went alright? You're all fine?"

"Yeah everything went great, he's perfect, 7 pounds 14 ounces, I'm feeding him right now."

"Oh Piper, I'm so happy for you. Does he have a name?"

"We named him James, after James and the Giant Peach _and_ a couple of other things," she said smiling as she caressed Jamie's head.

"You read that book a hundred times as a kid," she said remembering a little Piper drooling over her Roald Dahl collection.

She asked her about visiting hours and offered to help them get settled at home as Piper turned down the offer and said they would be alright. Alex shook her head, "hang on mom," Alex muted the phone, "she should come and help."

"We'll be okay, if we need help we can call her."

"I think we should take her up on it, so we can adjust. When we leave here were gonna be on our own," she said with a slight worry in her voice, "just for a few days."

Piper accepted the offer, eventually hanging up and peered at Alex, "she's going to drive us crazy."

"So what, we're lucky to have her." Piper looked at Alex shutting her mouth instantly and nodded quickly. She looked down at her son who seemed satiated once again and burped him while he lay against her chest. She laid him down between her legs and Alex tried to her best to show her how to swaddle him. It wasn't as good as when the nurse did it, but she accepted it as their son continued to remain still.

She sent a text to Nicky and reserved their rest of their phone list aside for the morning.

The next morning Alex rocked her son in the rocker, while Piper was examined to make sure she was healing well.

"C'mere, feel this, it's so gross."

She stood up with her son cradled in one arm and rubbed her hand among the soft excess skin of Piper's abdomen, she could feel her uterus underneath her skin. "I mean I'm glad it's shrinking but now it's kind of just in the way, and it's not as fun when he's not in it."

"Thanks for the hands on experience babe," Alex retorted as she passed Piper their baby.

"What's for lunch ma?," Nicky's voice came booming through the room startling both Piper and Alex.

"Holy shit," she whispered bringing a hand to her mouth, "I can't believe he's here." She walked over toward Piper and went to touch his head when Alex stood up, "go wash your hands!," she yelled before she could touch him.

"Okay," she pulled her hand back and tossed the little gift bag she brought at the brunette, "Jesus Vause, you say it like I'm a walking disease," she kissed Piper on the cheek, "congratulations," she mumbled, "way to make this one even more of a _pain_ in the ass than she already was."

"Yeah well I don't know _where_ your hands have been," Alex said seriously. Piper broke her son's latch and gave him to Alex nodding her head approvingly, glad that her wife was anal enough for the both of them.

Alex sat back in the rocker, alternating between back strokes and pats, when Nicky turned around and caught her breath, seeing Alex hold the small baby against her body. Her eyes started to well up, "this isn't fucking normal, he's just another person," she said annoyed at her body's reaction to Piper and Alex's son.

"Okay, were gonna need to do something about the language situation," Piper said looking at both Alex and Nicky.

Alex stood up to let her sit down while she placed him in her best friend's arms.

"He doesn't understand me yet, I need time to break the habit."

"Well practice, Finn's coming with Polly in a bit for children's hours."

Alex looked at Nicky holding her baby, hair all disheveled, nose all mucousy, and handed her a tissue, "I can't believe they let you in here, where the hell is security?"

"He's seriously beautiful you guys," Nicky said as Alex took a picture. She handed the gift bag over to Piper and she withdrew a little onesie that said "got milk?"

"Thanks Nicky," Piper laughed, "will you be okay holding him for a while, so I can shower?"

"Yeah, if he tells me anything riveting I know where to find ya."

Piper eased off the bed, hissing at the soreness as Alex helped her in the bathroom. She got Piper into the shower and got her fresh clothes and toiletries from her bag and set them up for her in the bathroom.

She came back out to sit near Nicky. Nicky looked up at her and shook her head in awe,

"I know, you don't have to say anything," Alex replied to the silent commentary.

"How'd she do with everything?"

"She was ridiculous!," she said aloud with wide eyes and snacked on Piper's stale leftovers from her breakfast tray. "She was so strong, I was getting ready to lose it though, she didn't want to come to the hospital. I was so relieved when Polly came and helped us get to the hospital, and then once we were here and they opened up the tray and had her start pushing, I felt my ears ringing and got really hot, I really thought I was going to faint. It's such a blur."

"Sounds crazy," Nicky said making a bizarre face at a now awake Jamie.

"Nicky it was the coolest feeling ever to see him come up onto her chest. I was holding him last night and it's so weird to me that it's the same person I've gotten to know all this time, like even though it was more abstract before, I can't describe it."

She walked back and forth from the bathroom to the bag to get Piper's lotion and things that made her feel more like herself. She helped her tuck an ice pack into her sexy post-partum panties and got her settled back into bed.

"My ass is killing me," she said as slowly sat down, "but I feel so much better after that shower." She reached over toward Nicky, "can I have him back so he doesn't think I smell like that all the time?"

Alex brought him over to Piper as Finn and Polly joined the crowd.

"Pippy! I brought you this!," he said loudly, excitedly. Polly lifted him and told him to whisper.

"Look Finn," Polly held him close on her hip and pointed to her new nephew, "that's Jamie." Alex came over and smeared the alcohol soap into both Finn and Polly's hands.

"Jamie and Mookie is the same?"

"I know, right kid?," Alex said astonished, "he totally gets it!"

"Yeah Finn, remember when we didn't know if Mookie was a boy or a girl? Well he's a boy baby, we named him Jamie," Piper explained to him.

He nodded, showing that he understood. Alex took him from Polly, as the soap dripped from his hands, and sat him next to Piper in the bed; he stretched his neck to see the baby. He handed the bag to Alex and rubbed his hands together copying his mother and Piper placed her son into Finn's arms. Finn held one arm around his torso and patted his head with other as Alex stood by, "he's a nice baby."

Piper pulled the tissue paper off the top of the gift bag and pulled out multiple blocks of wood.

"We did it this morning," Finn said as she continued to pull out the wooden letters covered in assorted wrapping paper that spelled out "James."

"It's the paper from your shower gifts," Polly explained to her, "you would've gotten them sooner but I didn't have a name until last night. You can hang them on the wall from here," she let a letter hang from her index finger by a piece of shiny satin ribbon.

"Thanks you guys, no more though, you've done enough," she kissed the top of Finn's head and hugged Polly, "he's already spoiled!"

"Yeah right, what about you with Finn all these years. I can finally stuff a kid full of sugar and not have to deal with the aftermath and I fully plan on reaping those benefits. Can I please hold him Finn, I haven't gotten a chance to yet?"

He nodded and she lifted him up from her son and swayed with him back and forth, smelling his head, "ugh I forgot what this feels like. Whenever you need a break, please let me know, I mean I'll be over plenty, but if you ever just need an afternoon to sleep or something, I'll be more than glad to take this mush off your hands for a few hours."

"Thanks Polly," Alex said, "actually I need to go figure out the car seat, you want to come with me?," she said toward Nicky.

"Yeah Vause," she said as she stood up from the rocking chair and rubbed Jamie's ear softly. Like a revolving door as Alex and Nicky walked out, minutes later Piper's parents walked in. The grandparents immediately started gushing over their grandchild. After a while, Piper texted Alex to stay by the apartment to help get her parents up to their apartment. After many violent shakes of the car seat by both her and Nicky they were satisfied that it was securely in place and they waited for Piper's parents. Nicky said her goodbyes and congrats as Alex helped them with their luggage up to their apartment and helped them settle in. She made sure they knew how to use the remote and showed them their takeout drawer and went back to the hospital to be with her new family.

She could hear Jamie's wails from down the hall, as Piper was changing him on the bed. She put on a fresh diaper but he still cried.

Alex lifted him up off the bed, "alright baby, are you tired of being passed around like a hot potato all day?, I know…, but you have to get used it, everyone's happy to meet you," he started to settle to Alex's coos, as Piper chucked the wet breast pad from her bra, "I think I waited too long to feed him, poor thing," she moved things around the bed, overwhelmed.

"It's okay Pipes, he's okay, just get comfortable," she said as she bounced with him in place. She nodded and took him from Alex, he thrashed his hand around frustrated until she got him to calmly settle against her chest and finally nursed. She exhaled relieved at the silence, "did my parents get up okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, they're watching reruns, 'Oh that Jerry Seinfeld,' she said imitating Carol Chapman, "I left them with some take out menu's and gave them fresh towels."

"Great, thank you so much," she sighed, "I'm so tired."

"Well the nurse said we should try to sleep when he sleeps, so after this lets try to get some rest." They settled him in the plastic bassinet beside the bed.

The next afternoon Piper and Jamie were discharged from the hospital. Alex brought up the carrier from the car seat while Piper wrapped him in layers upon layers of clothing and blankets. Alex could barely see his face when she saw the fluff of material around their baby.

"This one's ours right? Cause I can't see him Pipes."

"You said it was freezing out!"

Alex set him into the carrier and strapped him in, buckling him in. She slipped the strap of their overnight bag over her chest and looked around the room as Piper got her coat on, "all good?"

"Mmmhmm, lets go home!," she said cooing at her baby, while Alex lifted the carrier off the bed and headed down to their car. She opened the back door, while Piper got in on the other side, and snapped the carrier into the holder. She put another blanket over the straps as Piper put on her seatbelt and pushed the top piece of the carrier back so she could see his face. Alex kissed his nose and got into the driver's side and pulled away.

It was a 3 block drive from the hospital to their apartment and she was thankful for the short distance as she was a nervous wreck. She looked through the rearview mirror before changing lanes to make a turn and caught Piper leaning over the carrier and nuzzling their baby. Her vision blurred and she pulled over.

"What happened, did we forget something at the hospital?"

"Yeah, my balls," she turned her head around toward Piper sniffling.

"What is it?," she reached over wiping the lone tear that streamed over Alex's cheek.

"I'm not used to looking back there and seeing you both in the mirror. It just hits me in waves. He's okay?"

Piper rubbed at her neck, "yeah he's fine. Are you? Just take a second."

Alex nodded and looked up letting her eyes dry up, "okay onward."

She parked and got their bag and Jamie out of the car and slowly made their way upstairs. They set him down in his carrier on the floor of their apartment and undressed out of their winter clothes. She unbundled Jamie from the ridiculous amounts of layers they burritoed him in and lifted him up to Piper.

Piper carried him slowly as they walked through all the rooms giving him a tour and stopping lastly in the dim light of his nursery, "welcome home, baby."


	14. Chapter 14

As always thank you for the favorites, follows and reviews. I check them first thing each morning and its extremely fulfilling and motivating to keep going.

TheVausemanFeels & AtotheMe923: glad you enjoy_ the feels_. I love reading the heartache fics on here, but there are so many skilled writers who do it well that I like to stick to the feels, glad you like them too.

FaeCym: so honored to have a review from you, love your stories!

Justjane18, (also huge fan of your story!), atotheme923, lookuptothesky39, thevauseman: will continue to struggle/try to keep them in character as best as I can as parents of the future. Ty for the props.

TheSwedish (all your reviews always make me happy, your English is fine don't worry about it ever!), 8isgreat08, Sandy, rubiano: thank you so much for the continued love.

Glad so many of you liked their moment heading home :), from a special place in my heart.

* * *

14

The blonde sleeps deeply in true exhaustion, her head turned to the side, her arm over the back of their baby, her lips slightly parted. She questions whether or not she should wake the blonde and help her move from the couch to the bedroom, but instead just props a pillow under her head and closes the curtains in the living room. She lifted their son off of her chest and covered her with a blanket; she lays him on the love seat next to her mother in law and showed off her 3 days worth of swaddling skills. Carol insisted that she take a nap as well but she said she couldn't. She was determined to install the co-sleeper in their bedroom so that they didn't have to get up to go to his room to check on him again; they tried putting him to sleep in his crib last night and listened for him on the baby monitor but Piper worried that they'd sleep through his cries and Alex kept insisting she'd heard him and checked on him no less than four times through the night just to see him lying completely still.

Bill caught sight of his daughter in law dragging the large box out of the nursery toward their bedroom, "want some help there?"

"Nah I got it thanks." She heaved it into their room, cut open the box and laid out all of the contents. She put it together relatively quickly and attached it to Piper's side of the bed.

"Fish taco's or chili night?," he asked Alex as she returned from their bedroom, "if you're gonna make chili, we need to put aside some for our friend Nicky, the short one with the crazy blondish hair? She'll blow a fuse if she knows there's a Chapman chili that she didn't get to take advantage of. She's got an abnormal obsession."

"Not a problem, want to make enough to keep you guys stocked for a week or two." Alex washed her hands and started to pull things out from around the kitchen when he sent her out to relax with the rest of his family. Carol handed off her grandson and Alex slouched down into the couch, she loosened his swaddle and rested him over her legs to stroke his chest.

"Oh," she started to get up, "I wanted to hang up the letters Polly made for him," she slowly rose careful not to wake James.

"I can do that Alex, just sit and rest with him, Piper said you guys didn't get any sleep last night."

She yawned, "it's alright, I can just do it later."

"Don't be ridiculous, c'mon now rest, grandma's orders."

Alex slouched back down on the couch resting her head on the arm and let her legs drape over the other arm, she unswaddled James and laid him face down on her chest and rubbed his back, while she breathed deeply inhaling his hair and fell asleep.

"She's just as bad!," Carol said pointing out Alex to Bill, "how do I take a picture with this thing?," she asked her husband as she pulled her glasses down to the tip of her nose and tried to read the small print on her phone. She figured out that pressing the camera button magically worked the camera and took a picture of Alex with her grandson and then a wider shot of both women passed out on both couches, "looks about right for day 3."

* * *

"This shelf's got the potato leek batch and the lentil," Bill Chapman reviewed the geography of the fully stocked refrigerator as Piper bounced her son over her shoulder, reading the labels with her mother's handwriting on containers upon containers of food, "and there's a pot pie down here, and a lasagna and the leftover chili in the freezer. There's a deep container of chili for your friend in there too, make sure you share it!," he says shutting the door and walks toward their door to join his wife who's already got her coat on.

She laughs, "I will, I think we have enough food here to get through the rest of this hibernation season, thanks."

"He always looks like he's gonna fall over your bony shoulder," Alex says to her with an open hand on James' back while Piper keeps him propped high.

"I have our baby daredevil over my shoulder, you have your salt shaker, he's fine, he burps better this way," Piper says to her struggling to hold him up and unlock their door at the same time. Alex shoos her hand away and un-does the double locks and chain, profuse thanks are exchanged while James is smattered with multiple kisses from granny and gramps.

"You call me if you need me to come back alright?," she says directly to Alex, "no sense in struggling."

Alex watches the Chapman's exit down their hall and locks their door, as Piper exhales a sigh of relief. She was thankful for the help but was happy to have her apartment back and for the first time it was just the three of them.

Alex starts to pick up behind the aftermath that the tornado left behind in their living room when James starts to whimper and then lets out a strong cry. Piper bounces him up and down, swaying back and forth, she rubs his back trying to sooth him with shushes.

"I just fed him he can't be hungry," she says to Alex who's already walking over to her. Alex dips her head towards her son's tush, "geez, you stink kiddo, this is already the second time today," she takes him from Piper, "I don't know how he's growing. How does anything even have time to absorb? His plumbing squirts everything right back out!" They'd gone to the pediatrician 2 days prior for his first follow up visit after delivery and he had already gained 2 ounces.

Piper slowly eases down on the couch and watches Alex swiftly change their sons diaper through his wails; she re-snaps his onesie, and lifts him up supporting his head bringing him up onto her shoulder the way he likes it; he whimpers once or twice before quickly settling against the swell of her chest. She rests her cheek on the top of his head and smiles slightly to herself proud that she's able to soothe her son; she sees Piper staring at her with lowered brows,

"What? Don't say I'm spoiling him," she said to the blonde defensively.

Piper softened her stare and gazed her son against her wife's breasts, just visible through her very worn loose grey v neck. "You can't spoil him, not by holding him," she said with a wide smile and puppy eyes, "he loves to be held."

"Hah, _just_ like you," she says pointedly, "then what was with the Bert eyebrows?"

"Just amused I guess, how a few days ago you were practically putting his diaper on backwards and going through a pack and a half of wipes every time you changed him and now…," she started laughing, "you're like a ninja."

"Yeah well the quicker I can get him off his back the better, he hates it!"

"Oh, _just_ like you."

"Piper!," she started to protest having been given shit for inappropriate language over the last week, but then she shrugged her shoulders, "some of us aren't lazy _bottoms_," she guffawed, "besides I don't like to mess up my quaff," she said smoothing her hair. "Want something to eat?," she started over toward the kitchen, "...and don't even say anything smart, I already have my calendar alarm set to ravage you in five weeks."

Piper pursed her lips and shook her head, _something's never change._ "Feel like making me a smoothie?"

"Sixteen options of already made stuff in the fridge, but _yes I_ can make you a smoothie, oh mother of my child, apple of my eye. What kind?"

"Peanut butter banana? You got him over there?"

"Yes Piper, _you know_ I'm more than capable of doing two things at a time," she said excited to continue showing off her skills. She held James in the crook of her arm while taking the lid off their blender. She got down the peanut butter and held a banana and shook it until it fell off the bunch. "Okay so I kind of need both of my hands for this, can you hold him?," she asked humbly and walked her son back over to Piper.

"Absolutely not," she said sarcastically reaching her arms up to received her son with s smirk.

"I want one of those baby wrappy things," she says motioning putting something over her shoulders.

"A carrier?," Piper chuckles correcting her.

"Yeah but not the one's with the buckles and crap, the cloth ones like a Mei Tai or an African kanga."

Piper never minded Alex throwing around her worldly knowledge, she loved that Alex never hesitated to incorporate it into their everyday lives, "whatever you want, I just don't know where to find those."

"I'll look it up later," she said turning on the blender, startling James against Pipers chest. She drew circles with her pointer over his head, kept her feet on the coffee table and bounced her legs.

She handed the smoothie to Piper and kissed James tenderly on his forehead. "Mmmph," she whined, "I need to get some work done," she said and walked out toward the office.

"Hey Alex, do we need anything from outside? Polly's gonna drop off some of Finn's old…," she stopped in the doorway to look at Alex sleeping on her stomach, her face against her bent arm, pencil still in her hand. She rubbed Alex's butt with her foot, "Al? Honey wake up," she nudged her with her foot again.

"Hmmm?," she managed from the floor.

"Polly's gonna stop by to drop off some of Finn's old clothes, do you want her to pick up anything else?"

"The wrap," she mumbled.

"Babe I don't know where to get that and…"

"Moby wrap, Babies R Us, more like Babies R costing me an arm and a leg," she swallowed and cleared her throat, "Union Square has it in stock, $45, there's cash in my bag, ill pay'er back," she managed to get herself into a slumped cross legged position.

"Did you get that?" Piper asked Polly into her phone that was wedged between her ear and her shoulder.

She hung up with Polly. "Can you take him while I go shower?," she asked not waiting for Alex to respond. She set him down into her arms. "And can we do a wash later? Polly said she'd wash the clothes first but I told her not to bother because I'd need to do it again," she judged herself knowing she was already a neurotic mess. "Alex?!" The brunette snapped her head up, her eyes wide, "yeah, I can take him," she looked down not realizing she was already holding him, "oh, Hi," she said smiling down at him. "I need to talk to my HR department because this is not gonna fly," she said to Piper motioning at the work that was lying around the floor, "no its not!," she said to James in a baby voice. "I'm so tired."

"Just give me twenty minutes and I'll take him back so you can finish."

"Kay," she said and pulled a throw from their leather chair.

Piper walked back, "that shower is sincerely my happy place," she said turning into the doorway to find Alex and James sleeping on the floor, "Oh for God's sake," she whispered to herself looking at her family nestled into each other. She left them there and finished picking up the mess in the front room that Alex had started organizing earlier.

She let Polly and Finn in an hour later, and dragged her down the hall when she demanded cuddle time with her new nephew. They stood in the doorway peering down at the two still sleeping on the floor. Polly sat on the floor and scooped up the sleeping baby, Piper jostled Alex slightly.

"Hey," she said to Polly opening her eyes, straightening her glasses, she embarrassedly adjusted her shirt that had come down while she rested.

Piper left and returned tossing her one of her flannel shirts,"can you bring him out in a few minutes? I need to feed him," she said while Finn dragged her out to get some chocolate milk.

She sat upright and crossed a leg under the other and watched Polly with him. "The bags of clothes are in the front, you guys can just look through them whenever and whatever you don't want, just donate or something." Alex nodded.

"Just holding him makes me yearn for another one," she said looking at James, "they're so much work when they're this small but ugh, their smell, and their noises, they change so fast." Alex helped Polly up and joined Piper and Finn in the front.

"Oh the sling is also in that big bag there," she said pointing Alex in the direction of her haul.

"Oh thanks!," she withdrew the plastic bag from the bag of hand me downs and cracked open the package with her Moby wrap and looked through the pamphlet it came with.

Piper came over and sat with Polly on the couch, Finn joined them holding his chocolate milk, and added a second hand to the cup with a glare from Polly. Polly handed James to Piper and she covered herself with a receiving blanket and nursed him.

Polly sighed watching her friend, "do you remember being that small?," she asked Finn caressing his head and pulling him close to her; she wished she could shrink him down again.

He shook his head rapidly, "nooooo mommy," he said straightening up to make himself seem bigger.

"Go over there Finn," Piper pointed to one of the smaller bookshelves, "on the bottom row, do you see the picture of you and me, you're standing on the jungle gym?"

His hand hovered over different frames before he found one of his aunt and a toddler, "this one?" he raised it up curiously.

"Yep," she nodded and beckoned him to bring it over. He brought it over and placed his hands on her knees and pulled back the blanket to watch this fascinating new little person have lunch. She discarded the blanket intended for the now non-existent modesty and he climbed up beside her and continued to watch.

"Look how handsome you are here," she said stroking the old photograph. It was the first time she'd met him, that day was weighted with both joy and sorrow, for while she was thrilled to finally run around with her nephew, hearing him squeal with laughter as she chased him up wide stairs of the jungle gym, she'd missed out on his entire first year and some of his second. She was so relieved that he'd taken to her and seemed comfortable with her holding him. She remembered Polly pointing out that while he still appeared to need a hand to climb down steps, climbing up those same steps without any support was a first for him that day, and she felt honored to witness his milestone.

Her moment of reminiscing was broken by Finn's giggles as she turned as saw Alex trying to balance a bag of flour into the harness she tied around herself. Piper joined in the giggles, "what on earth are you doing? That looks really complicated by the way."

"I want to practice and make sure it doesn't come undone. It wasn't hard though," she bounced up and down a little to see if the flour bag would fall, "seems sturdy."

Piper broke James' latch and covered herself up, "wanna burp him Finn?"

He nodded enthusiastically and opened his arms. "Okay, scoot down a little so you're leaning so he doesn't slip off, " she helped adjust his seating and laid her son down over Finn so they were facing each other and demonstrated tapping his back.

"Smile Finn," Alex said snapping a picture of the proud cousin taking care of her son. Piper took the camera and took a picture of Alex with her flour baby with two thumbs up.

* * *

A few days later Nicky stopped by, Alex unlocked the door and went back to the kitchen, Piper napped in their bedroom. "I come bearing commissary Vauseman's," she said shouting and started taking off her boots at the front door.

"Jesus Nichols, we have a baby and Piper's sleeping, is there a brain under that bush? Whaddya got?," Alex came around the corner with James strapped to her chest, "we have something to barter with;" she says temptingly, she goes over to the freezer to get Nicky's portion of chili."This is from Sir Chapman." Nickys eyes are popping out of her head, but Alex cant tell if it's because she's delighted to be the recipient of a tupperware of chili or her appearance. Her Janis Joplin look a like of a best friend puts the bag she brought onto the counter, takes the chili and sets it near the bag.

"Don't try talking to me all normal when you look like a kangaroo," she said swirling her hand around the baby, "what the hell is that?" She raised herself up onto her toes trying to get a look at her friends' baby, Alex pulled away. "Nah uh, you don't get to play with him after insulting the mama roo. He loves this thing by the way."

Nicky smirked, "why wouldn't he love being smothered by tits all day? Smart kid." She took her gift and handed Alex a cd of Lady Gaga lullaby covers. "This rocks Nichols thanks!," she says looking over the track list. "He needs a bath, wanna help me?"

"For sure, is he even in that thing?," she pointed to the wrap. Alex pulled back one of the layers revealing his face, "so should it just be an expectation that he's fucking cuter each time I see him?, c'mon Vause!" Alex pulled him out from within the cloth and handed him to Nicky while she walked out to get all of the stuff for his bath. She popped his new cd in the player and returned with a giant cloth flower, and bath gear. She ran his bath, checked the water and placed him in the flower in the sink, "oh you're really wearing this June Cleaver thing well Vause."

Alex hummed along to the tune and started singing in falsetto to match the octave, as she lathered his washcloth and cleaned the front of his body, "I'm gonna lace up my boots, throw on some leather and cruise, down the streets that I love in my fishnet gloves, I'm a sinner."

Nicky joined her, "then I'll go down to the bar, but I won't cry anymore, I'll hold my whiskey up high, kiss the bartender twice I'm a loser," she made an "L" on her forehead.

"Ok hold him up so I can get his butt," she said to Nicky.

"His butt is like this big," she made a space between her index and thumb the size of a peanut, "just move his leg."

"Can you just fucking help me?"

"Alright, alright," she lifted him, "time for lessons with Nicky kid, lesson # 1: crack kills."


End file.
